La Quinta's longtime post office in the Cove is slated for demolition as part of an expansion of the neighboring Tower Market and gas station. City officials approved the expansion more than a year ago, but did not announce the post office closure to the public.
The post office at 51-321 Avenida Bermudas, within walking distance of shops and restaurants in Old Town La Quinta, is "closing due to a loss of lease by the lessor," U.S. Postal Service spokesperson John T. Wyatt said Friday, Sept. 11. The lease with Tower Energy Group, which owns the property, expires Nov. 30.
"We are still working on the details of the transition of the facility," Wyatt said.
The Cove location provides only retail and P.O. box services, and mail carriers do not operate
from the facility, he said. It has about 1,600 P.O. boxes available. Customers with P.O. boxes will be transferred to the La Quinta Main Post Office at 79-125 Corporate Center Drive, about five miles away, where they can continue their service or make changes with a retail clerk.
Its two employees will also be transferred to another post office.
USPS has not yet said exactly when the Cove's post office will close, whether it is looking for a replacement site near the Cove, when customers will be formally notified or what will happen to the two collection boxes in the parking lot outside of the building.
Why is La Quinta Cove post office closing?
Tower Energy Group, which owns the property, plans to demolish the La Quinta Cove Post Office to make way for a 2,379-square-foot expansion of the Tower Market and two additional fuel pumps.
Founded by Tim Rogers, who also developed the Thermal Club, the company owns the Tower Market brand and operates nine gas stations and adjoining convenience stores across the Coachella Valley.
The city's planning commission unanimously approved the expansion in February 2025, but the plan to eliminate the post office did not draw any public attention. No one from the community spoke in support of or opposition to the demolition — and several commissioners questioned whether the meeting's agenda, which titled the project as an expansion of an existing market and fuel station, sufficiently made clear that the post office would be demolished.
Former commissioner Dale Tyerman even acknowledged that, after reviewing the proposal, "it was not obvious to this commissioner anyway that the post office was going away."
"There's a communication opportunity here and a marketing issue. I mean, if this were to be in tomorrow's Desert Sun, we would have 100 people in this audience at the next planning commission meeting," Tyerman said at the time. "I think there is an issue here that needs to be addressed. I don't think it's a planning commission issue, but it is something that the city and Tower Market need to address."
Because the project didn't require the city council's approval, the planning commission had the final say. Commissioners could have postponed the vote and sent out another notice that more explicitly called attention to the demolition of post office, but city officials said it was not legally required to do so.
They ultimately voted to approve the project that night, agreeing that Tower Energy Group had done what was required of it while asking the city to consider looking at ways to better notify residents about the post office.
"Somebody's got to get in front of this," Commissioner Kevin McCune said at the time, adding that he did not want Tower Energy or the city to be seen as the "bad guys."
"When you're talking about the demolition of a building that houses a very important public service, it shouldn't be a footnote," Commissioner Elisa Guerrero said.
More recently, in June 2026, the city approved minor revisions to Tower Market's already-approved expansion, including a reconfigured parking lot and landscaping and the relocation of a trash enclosure, underground fuel tank and fueling canopy.
The history of La Quinta's post office in the Cove
La Quinta's first post office was established on Nov. 22, 1930, more than 50 years before the city was officially incorporated.
The Coachella Valley's first post office opened in Coachella in November 1901, followed by Cathedral City in September 1921.
Walter Morgan, who developed the La Quinta Hotel, established La Quinta's post office and served as its first postmaster. The post office operated until June 30, 1943 and "most likely closed when the Hotel closed because of World War II," according to a draft of the city's history. Until 1948, all mail went through the Indio Post Office before postal service was reestablished in La Quinta, likely at the hotel, as a "winter post office."
The post office later operated from the historic Lumberyard Building at 77-895 Avenida Montezuma, which also housed a grocery store. One of the Village's earliest commercial buildings, its lumberyard supplied building materials for some of the early homes in the Cove.
The post office later moved again in 1957 to a larger building at 78-106 Avenue 52, just east of the former Desert Club. A new post office opened in 1967 at 78-100 Calle Tampico, now home to Tampico Meat Market, according to previous reporting in The Desert Sun and the La Quinta Museum.
In 1980, the Postal Service awarded Heinz Steinmann a contract of roughly $350,000 to build a new post office on Avenida Bermudas. The building opened in March 1982, just weeks before the city of La Quinta was incorporated on May 1, and has served the Cove for more than four decades.
Jennifer Cortez covers education and breaking news in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at jennifer.cortez@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Why La Quinta Cove post office is closing, set for demolition
