Aside from a fleet of Postal Service trucks typically in the parking lot - but now gone - it looks like business as usual at the Clearwater Beach Marina. 

However, on closer inspection the post office boxes sit in disarray and darkness. The double doors are locked and aside from some signs, a single truck and a stand alone drop box, there is not much left of the Beach Post Office which shuttered its doors Friday.

While postal officials offered up a last minute contract to keep the office open until May 31, city officials did not agree to it.

“We’ve got other plans for this building,” said Bill Morris, harbormaster. 

Those plans include the latest Frank Chivas restaurant the Marina Cantina.

Chivas, who is an owner of Baystar Restaurant Group, which includes Island Way Grill, Rumba and Salt Rock Grill, is planning to create the mexican restaurant and beer bar at the 1950s era two-story structure.

Chivas signed a lease for much of the second floor of the marina Oct. 25, according to city records. The three-year lease is worth $2,585 a month plus 8 percent of alcohol sales that are more than $10,000, according to city documents. The nine second-floor units take up about 2,317 square feet.

Any lease for more than five years would have to be approved by the City Council.

Chivas would be looking at a renovated space, including a deck area overlooking the marina and Pier 60, of nearly 7,000 square feet. Plans could also call for restoring the structure to its original appearance, which is reminiscent of a tug boat.

The change is shear economics.

The Postal Service depends on revenue from postage, which is declining. About 603,000 pieces of mail were delivered in 2008. That number fell to 506,000 in 2010.

Its operations have been moved to the Cleveland Street station. A sign on the door of the Beach Post Office directed beach residents to also use a station on Island Estates at the Beach Print Shack.

The Post Office, considered a Federal lease, was already paying below market rate. In the past, postal officials asked for terms that included free rent. However, there were a handful of other groups who would pay market rent for the space, Morris said.

The Post Office's original lease already had expired and they were paying month to month. Rather than extend it three months officials decided to let it expire at the end of the month.

Stefan Malatesta, who lives on Island Estates, sat outside the Jolly Roger Ice Cream and Coffee Shop Wednesday. He mailed letters and packages at the beach post office occasionally and sometimes uses the Island Estates Post Office at the Beach Print Shack.

"I know a lot of people are unhappy, but it's not making any money. Complaining about it's not going to change anything," Malatesta said. "You just have to adapt."

*updated 12:33 p.m. Feb. 12, 2012.