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Apartment Complex Gets Creative To Deal With Deluge Of Christmas Packages

(CBS) -- As Christmas comes into focus, Chicago's largest mega apartment complex is using cryptic codes on a TV monitor to make sure packages make it from Santa to you.

CBS 2's Vince Gerasole breaks down the battle plan.

At the Presidential Towers Apartments they're feeling boxed in.

"Packages just continue to build up and build up," said leasing manager Matt Mehon.

At month's end, they'll take in 19,000 packages. In fact this December's deliveries will double last year's. Blame the boom in online shopping with purchases shipped out from warehouses.

Built in the 80's with over 2,300 units, the complex has no dedicated space for such massive deliveries.

"We literally sat down came up with a logistical process as it flows through the property," said general manager Holly Jacobson.

Now, when multiple trucks make their deliveries, they are greeted by a staff of three, who electronically scan each package, reporting the parcels to tenants on arrival boards in the lobby.

Smaller packages are stored on shelves in a corner of the dry cleaners, a former rental office now houses letter deliveries and standard mail, and larger boxes are wheeled across the lobby to a vacant storefront, and keep in mind nothing stays there longer than a week.

Some properties nationwide are so overwhelmed by the deluge in deliveries that they now refuse to accept packages for their tenants. Most however, are thinking outside the box, like presidential towers, and coming up with ways to adapt.

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