Gregoire delays building project

By Adam Wilson | The Olympian • Published June 26, 2008

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The governor has put the brakes on a $370 million state building project, asking the Department of Information Services and architects to significantly trim its cost.

The decision about the increasingly costly Wheeler site project on the east Capitol Campus likely will delay the project by almost a year, might speed work on a new Heritage Center, and will send Washington State Patrol on a housing hunt.

Gov. Chris Gregoire wanted to re-examine the three-building Wheeler project, which had an estimated price tag of $260 million when the Legislature approved it a year ago, said Glenn Kuper of the Office of Financial Management.

"The biggest concern we have right now are the up-front costs for the project. They are quite high at this time," he said.

The project's costs skyrocketed once architects and traffic experts began detailed planning. And residents of the nearby neighborhood filed an appeal of the proposed traffic plan for the site, which included installing a roundabout near the 14th Avenue on-ramps to Interstate 5.

Originally, Information Services proposed consolidating its 10 offices into a single building on the site and building a data center to hold the state's major computer systems next door.

Lawmakers added a third building to the project. The office building would give the State Patrol someplace to go after its current home is demolished in 2010 to make room for a separate, $221 million project on the other side of the campus.

The most logical way to reduce the Wheeler site's cost would be to cancel the office building, Kuper said.

But the idea is not as simple as it sounds.

Because the project was approved as part of a budget bill, lawmakers probably would have to pass a new law to change it, said Sen. Karen Fraser, a Thurston County Democrat who helped write the first plan.

The Legislature isn't scheduled to meet again until January, possibly pushing a restart on the project to next spring.

The delay and Gregoire's decision to cut costs are understandable given the price tag, Fraser said.