Changes will improve the Capitol Campus

• Published May 06, 2008

The dominoes have begun to fall, triggering a series of construction projects that will significantly alter the look of the state Capitol Campus.

It's going to be a difficult transition, but the end result — a new child care center, new headquarters for the Washington State Patrol and new headquarters and a data center for the state Department of Information Services — will be worth it when construction is complete in 2010.

The first project is the relocation of the Capitol Campus Child Care Center from its 14th Avenue location to a Perry Street building 1.5 miles away. The state has purchased a 7,000-square-foot building for $700,000. The former 1950s-era nursing home across the street from Garfield Elementary School will undergo a $1.2 million overhaul to house the 82-child center.

"It looks like it's as close as you can get to a new building in a remodel," said Mary Sue Wilson, who heads the center's parents board, which runs the center and will lease the new building.

State employees who have their children enrolled in the child care center had hoped for a location closer to the campus, but that's not how things worked out.

However, the State Capitol Committee has approved the purchase of property that could serve as the location of a second child care center. With $2.4 million included in the latest budget, the state will buy the southern half of the block that includes Centennial Park along Union Avenue. The land, across the street from the Department of Natural Resources on the northern border of the Capitol Campus, could accommodate a second child care center.

Meanwhile, the remodeled child care center is expected to open by June. That will clear the way for the existing center to be demolished, making room for three new state offices at the corner of Jefferson Street and 14th Avenue on east campus.

Plans call for a new headquarters for Information Services, which provides technology services and products to state agencies, city and local governments, tribal governments, colleges and universities and qualified nonprofit groups.

Information Services has 500 employees in 10 locations in Thurston County. The $260 million construction project will allow consolidation of offices and should lead to more efficiency.

To accommodate the additional traffic generated by the three-building complex, state officials plan to build a roundabout at the intersection of 14th Avenue and Jefferson Street. Information Services Director Gary Robinson said the roundabout will be wider than others in Olympia to accommodate trucks, while also allowing people to walk across the intersection.

When the State Patrol employees move into their new office, that will clear the way for the demolition of the General Administration building on west campus, where the state is constructing a Heritage Center and Executive Office Building. That project is scheduled for completion in 2012 on the cliffs above Capitol Lake.

Combined, these necessary projects are going to substantially change the look of east and west campus and improve the efficiency of state government.