Postal Service cracks Las Vegas Valley's zip code

By LEIF WHITMORE

REAL ESTATE WRITER

Think of a jigsaw puzzle where each little piece must be numbered individually before they are all joined. After that, imagine cutting some of those pieces in half, and having to scribble new numbers on the pieces that were just made.

At first glance, the zip codes of Las Vegas can indeed be puzzling. Scrutinizing a local map of them reveals no obvious pattern of numbers for side-by-side areas. Seventy-two zips currently exist, with more on the way, and longtime residents can spot where the 10 new ones sprouted up in 1999.

Nonetheless, zip codes are a simple tool of expediency for the U.S. Postal Service, without which it would require 10 times the manpower to do what is accomplished by a scant number of zip code-reading machines. Tom Peterson, postmaster for the Las Vegas area, likened the zip code to a telephone area code in terms of what might be technologically impossible without it.

"I think there's still a lot of people who don't understand the importance of zip codes," Vic Fenamore, media spokesperson for the Postal Service, said. "Zip codes are very, very important ... even though the address element is the most important thing."

And to accommodate the valley's burgeoning population numbers, the service is continually "splitting" select regions where the population may have doubled and one zip code can no longer suffice. Certainly, areas of North Las Vegas, Henderson and Summerlin are zipped up in this category.

So, in describing how zip codes keep multiplying, and to depict how the fabric of local zip codes compares with other metropolises around the country, one need only refer to one (rather locally overused) word: growth. The service, according to Fenamore, has been adding 1,500 to 2,000 new delivery sites to the valley each month.

"It's been incredible -- it's nonstop," said Maxine Napoli, who heads Address Management Services, a branch of the Postal Service. "(The population) keeps going farther out, farther out ... they're going up in the mountains, going so far out. They're building master communities where it's in the middle of something that, years ago, was just a bunch of dirt."

AMS prepares -- following a 15-year plan, no less -- the new zip codes for areas that "split." In Summerlin, for example, everyone south of Cheyenne Avenue, north of Charleston Boulevard and between Rampart and Rainbow boulevards (along with everyone south of Alta Drive residing east of Town Center Drive to as far as Rainbow) previously used 89128. Since a split two years ago, everyone south of Summerlin Parkway in that region had to change their return address labels to read 89145.

Though the areas border each other, the zip codes are markedly dissimilar. Napoli said AMS does that for a reason.

"They don't have to be consecutive," she said. "The consideration is to make sure that we get the mail to the customer in the most efficient way possible and that's the rationale.

"We look at the duplications between the `890s' and `891s' ... that's why the numbers might jump, because of the fact of the duplication between the two three-digit areas that we have now."

Daniel J. Dunn, business manager of the Desert Mountain District for United Parcel Service, also noted the randomized pattern of the city's zip codes.

"We don't have an opinion, good or bad or ugly," he said of the local zip code landscape. "That's just the way we have to deal with it. I think they (the Postal Service) are faced with the same problem: growth. I don't think anybody expected the growth that we have right now."

All zips play a numbers game. In Las Vegas, they start with either "890" or "891," with the "8" being used by a clump of seven western states including Nevada. The "9" is used by Nevada only, while "0" and "1" correspond with different territories in the county, with "1" ranked number one and "0" a not-so-close second in the number of local areas that use it.

The last two digits identify the smaller delivery neighborhoods. There's where the numbers game continues and there's where a city's zip codes can resemble a massive jigsaw. The Postal Service's job is to fit these pieces snugly.

To do this, service representatives attend city council meetings, confer with the planning department and talk to various real estate developers around town. In turn, the post office learns where the next splits may take place.

Before a split actually happens, the service notifies all affected residents and businesses by mail (several times) six months in advance. Fenamore states it is the most important phase when a new zip code is born, and he also says the service has become quite proficient at this stage of the process.

"We had about 45,000 changes (in 1999), and I only received a very small handful of calls," Fenamore said. "That tells that most of the people understand why we have to do it. But we're going to have some complaints. There's no doubt about that, and we expect that with something like this, because change is not easy."

The few beefs that reach Fenamore are obvious: He has received calls from some residents who are "attached to their zip code" and protest the advent of a new one. A few businesses have even forwarded their bill for new stationery and business cards to the Postal Service.

Fenamore added that the old zip will still work for at least a year after the new one comes on the scene.

The Fiesta Casino Hotel, located at 2400 N. Rancho Drive, had its zip code changed from 89030 to 89032 in 1999, and Sherry Melton, marketing executive assistant for the casino, said, "We had plenty of time to order new business cards or letterhead stationery and things like that." She resides in the same area, though, and recalls a letter sent by her mother in Georgia took two weeks to arrive during the zip change.

Cassi Berhold, a medical office assistant who lives in the Centennial Hills area, had to switch her residential zip from 89129 to 89149, and said, "It was no big deal, it was just writing a different number down. Only one number changed, and it didn't make it that hard of a transition."

Before adding more zip codes, however, AMS must gain approval from Postal Service headquarters in Memphis, Tenn. The area postmaster's office noted that approval comes much faster for Las Vegas, as headquarters is aware of the area's rapid growth.

"We really have quite a firm grip on our growth, believe it or not, as far as the Postal Service is concerned," Fenamore said. "We're pretty much up to date on what we need to do to be able to ensure that they get expeditious delivery all the time. If we weren't so proactive or future-thinking, the Postal Service could be in a world of hurt.

"(Las Vegas) is different from any place in the country, obviously, and no other place in the country has the same concerns that we do."

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