The U.S. Postal Service appears to be solidifying plans for a huge new processing-and-distribution center in the Spokane International Airport Business Park that will replace an older facility located near downtown.


The agency recently completed an environmental assessment of a 31-acre site there, and could move ahead with land-lease negotiations and building-design and construction plans if a tentative finding of no significant environmental impact is approved following a public comment period, a Postal Service official says.


That official, Scott Vincent, an environmental specialist in the Postal Services major facilities services office in Memphis, Tenn., says hes 99.9 percent sure the no-impact finding will be approved, based on the minimal contamination findings of the environmental assessment.


The airport business park is located on about 600 acres of land just east of the airport, and includes about 40 buildings. The site being proposed for the big mail center is located on the north side of the park, and is bounded by Spotted Road on the east, Godfrey Boulevard on the west, and Park Drive on the north. A new road would be constructed on the south side of the facility. The site is close enough to airport ramps that tugs, the little tractors that pull trailers laden with air cargo, would be able to haul mail between the distribution center and the airport terminal.


As currently envisioned, the processing-and-distribution facility would have about 362,000 square feet of floor space. The estimated cost of the building project hasnt been released.


The project still needs to be approved by the Postal Services Board of Governors, and they arent expected to act until early next year, says Al DeSarro, a Denver-based spokesman for the Postal Service.


However, lease negotiations already are under way between the Postal Service and the Spokane Airport Board, which operates the airport business park, and the Postal Service expects to sign an agreement on the site by the end of this year.


The Postal Service disclosed in early 1992 that it planned to expand and renovate its current distribution center here, at 703 E. Trent, and said the project was scheduled to be completed by 1995.


However, it announced later that year that planning for the project had been halted due to a major reorganization within the agency.


Then, in 1994, the Postal Service said that it was looking not only at expanding the facility on Trent but also, as an alternative, at possibly moving the distribution center to a new, larger facility that would be built elsewhere in the Spokane area. Since then, however, the agency has declined to say for sure which option it would pursue, although it has acknowledged that it has been looking at potential building sites near the airport, as well as other sites.


The 154,000-square-foot facility on Trent, which the Postal Service says it has outgrown, processes mail for a 55,000-square-mile region encompassing most of Eastern Washington and North Idaho. The facility is a clearinghouse for more than 200 post offices, handles nearly 2 million pieces of mail a day, and employs about 460 people, DeSarro says.


The Postal Service owns the building and about 14 acres of land there. The property is located just south across the Centennial Trail from the Gonzaga University campus, and just east across the Spokane River from Riverfront Higher Education Park.


Gonzaga has been negotiating with the Postal Service for more than a year to acquire the property, which it believes would provide an ideal spot to put a south entrance onto its campus and also would include enough room for three academic buildings. One of the buildings that Gonzaga is considering for the site is a proposed new $17.5 million law school that Gonzaga hopes to have ready for use in the year 2000.