The UPS Customer Service Center in Watertown has closed and the company encouraged customers to use other locations, such as the UPS Store in Watertown Square.
The Customer Service Center was located at 76 Arlington St. and was a place to pick up and drop off packages. Mitch Polikoff, UPS Director of Media Relations confirmed the closing.
“We are closing select UPS Customer Centers to better align with our customers’ preferences for more convenient and easily accessible drop-off options,” Polikoff said. “We will continue our high standard of customer service through a wide range of resources that are available to our customers, including UPS Drop Boxes, 10,000 full-service retail shipping locations, such as The UPS Store and Staples, as well as UPS Authorized Shipping Outlets & Providers to ship packages.”
The UPS Store at 15 Main St. remains open, and packages can be dropped off and picked up at this location. Other options for pick up and drop off are the UPS access points in two CVS locations in Watertown: 189 Watertown St. and 655 Mt. Auburn St.
The main street location is not handicapped accessible. Sad.
The stairs are difficult as well along with the rug draped over them. It is an accident waiting to happen
Regarding the closure of the UPS Customer Service Center, that is very disappointing. Does anyone at the corporate level realize that they closed an accessible location on Arlington Street Watertown, where people who use wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, or have difficulty with stairs, could go? Now you are referring people to a location on Main Street that has a big step to go inside. This is not progress … it is moving backwards to exclude a segment of our community who have physical disabilities from an important business location.
I hope that the Watertown Commission on Disability will contact UPS corporate directly and point this out and request a meeting to discuss. This is a very serious matter and seems like a bad faith move with regard to those citizens with disabilities.
Surely UPS must care about those customers.
Excellent site to comply with the MBTA Communities Act. The Act requires Cities and Towns to establish “at least 1 district of reasonable size in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right.” The UPS site is an acre. And, if the Council and Administration does not take advantage of designating this site; one can readily see that they are hiding behind the shield of the MBTA Communities Act to overbuild in the Square. I have felt that their interest was in the Square. As Realtors say “Location, Location, Location.”
Something is going wrong in the community.
If they do not reverse course, it is time to shake, bake and wake up. Why is it that the Councilors and Planning Board is not demanding the Manager and Planning Department to explain to us what is Urban Planning’s “Best Practices.” I doubt that overloading the center of the town is.
In attendance at a couple of meetings where discussions centered on Watertown Square and the MBTA Law. The Manager stated that units in the development across the street from City Hall and the proposed number of units pending construction could not be counted by the City in complying with the MBTA Law.
I have been waiting for someone on the Council to speak out about this statement. This is a policy decision and no Manager has the executive privilege to establish policy. They can recommend; however, the Council, as the legislative body is the only body that can establish policy and it was certainly evident that they had not from the question one of the Councilors posed.
You make an interesting point Clyde. If UPS is closing the facility and not repurposing it, they should be approached about selling. It would be an excellent site for AFFORDABLE housing. You are right that Watertown should spread the density throughout MBTA served areas. This site is a hop, skip and a jump from the 70 bus.
Our city planners should look into this matter proactively. Even if this is not possible, it is the sort of thing that we should be actively hunting down.
Of course, we need more transit service in this area and should continue to advocate for that too.