Last Saturday mail began to make its way through the new Southern Maine Processing and Distribution Center in Scarborough.

The huge 51.4-acre site was created to help consolidate mail processing that used to be done at the 73-year-old center in Portland as well as in several other smaller buildings throughout the city.

“This is meant to help handle mail much more smoothly,” said Tom Rizzo of the U.S. Postal Service.

While the new center will benefit the postal service, it doesn’t add much to Scarborough.

According to Town Manager Ron Owens, the building is out in a corner of town where it won’t really affect much. It also won’t add any tax revenue as it’s government run.

Owens is glad it will keep jobs in the Portland area and hopes it will someday stimulate more development that will be profitable for Scarborough.

“It just adds activity to that part of town,” said Owens.

According to Rizzo, the new building and the new machinery will improve efficiency for the 1 billion pieces of mail sorted annually. Once all of the new machinery is installed, he said improved sorting and processing can help avoid any delays in delivery as well as help keep postage costs down.

At the old building, mail processing didn’t make much sense. Modern processing machines forced into an old building not designed for them made mail sorting inefficient.

“Mail at the new building will go from one machine to another across the aisle instead of up an elevator, down a hall, into another room across the building,” said Rizzo.

The building also has more parking and 79 loading bays, up from 40, for the mail trucks. Rizzo also said the 600 employees at the Scarborough building are already noticing environmental improvements.

“They love the fact that it’s bright and evenly lit,” said Rizzo. Dust is also less of problem now that modern air ventilation systems are in place. According to Rizzo, all that mail can create poor air quality.

“Over the years that dust can just settle everywhere,” he said.

According to Rizzo, Saturday was a little chaotic, but overall the transfer is going smoothly.

Mail handler and Scarborough resident Dick Babine, right, hands a postal employee a packet of information and materials to help ease the transition to his new work address at 79 Postal Service Way. The U.S. Postal Service’s new mail processing center opened Saturday on a 51.4-acre site in Scarborough.