QUEEN CREEK, AZ — A one-number zip code change in a growing southeast part of the Valley has become a bit of a pain for impacted homeowners.
One homeowner feeling the effects in the growing community is Kevin Rasmusson, he says he gets plenty of car parts shipped to his Queen Creek home.
He along with nearly 300 others in the southeast community will have their zip code changed by one number at the start of this month.
"We had to change everything," Rasmusson said. He’s amid the long, tedious process of changing everything associated with that zip code.
Things like medical records, banking, payment information and most recently, a package he was expecting ended up in the West Valley.
“I Just hope it works, it’s been a real pain in the butt,” he said.
The new zip code, 85144, for Queen Creek went into effect on July 1.
It will impact 28 addresses south of Hunt Highway and Empire Boulevard in Queen Creek.
The town says it won’t affect any municipal services, elections or emergency response.
Beth Seymour, who runs an assisted living facility out of her home says she's had to "notify them one by one," about the change so they can receive cards from their families.
She says she and her patients rely heavily on the mail for personal matters and medication, so it’s important every one of her patients and their families know about the change.
”It’s a lot of work but I need to do it or else I’m going to miss everything,” said Seymour.
ABC15 reached out to the U.S. Post Office, which urges anyone impacted in the Queen Creek area to notify family, friends, businesses or customers about the change.
USPS tells ABC15 it needed to make the change due to the growing area and if it didn’t, its database wouldn’t have been able to add the new address.
For some in Queen Creek, the growing pains felt were something they were prepared for but many tell us the outside commerce is still catching up.
“I tried to change my zip code, I tried to order something online, it won’t recognize the zip code,” said Rasmusson.
ABC15 reached out for a comment on what causes a zip code to be changed, a USPS spokesperson replied saying in part:
"Generally, we look at long-range ZIP Code planning for at least the next 5-20 years to determine availability of ZIP Codes for future mail processing and delivery needs. Monitoring delivery growth patterns helps us with facilities planning, delivery route planning, and other needs that keep mail delivery efficient and affordable. In this case, we were nearing capacity on ZIP+4 numbers. Once we reach capacity, we can’t [add] any more addresses to the database. Adding the new ZIP Code allows us to continue adding new addresses to the system."
The town of Queen Creek also published a map of the changes.
