ROANOKE (WSLS 10) - On Thursday, Southwest Virginia took another blow when the U.S. Postal Service announced it will close its Roanoke distribution center. Nearly 200 jobs will be impacted.
Changes coming to U.S. Postal Service in Roanoke
The center's processing will begin moving to Greensboro, North Carolina in April and will wrap up in July.
This comes one month after Norfolk Southern announced it will close its corporate office in Roanoke.
500 jobs will be relocated by August 1 to either Norfolk or Atlanta.
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WSLS 10 reached several Virginia lawmakers by phone Thursday to get their reaction on the string of bad news for the Roanoke region.
"We just passed a budget that significantly increases the Commonwealth Development for the governor's fund," said Del. Sam Rasoul (D-Roanoke). "We're going to try to do everything we can to make sure (Governor Terry McAuliffe) focuses a lot of those resources on Southwest Virginia."
Roanoke mail facility moving to North Carolina
"I know the governor and the secretary of commerce and trade are on top of this and I'll be pushing them every bit of the way," said Sen. John Edwards (D-Roanoke). "We've given them additional money to work with and I think the governor will step up to the plate and I'll be working very closely with him."
Edwards highlighted several positives that will help Roanoke's economy in the future, including the growth of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and the expansion of Amtrak which is expected to roll into the Star City by 2017.
Calls and emails to representatives of Governor McAuliffe were not returned.