Olympia Armory to close this week until 2027 for $19 million renovation
The City of Olympia has secured enough funding to move forward with transforming the old Olympia Armory into a creative arts campus. Building Manager Valerie Roberts said there will be a construction kickoff ceremony Thursday, Sept. 25, before the site is closed for construction.
The revamped space won’t be open until sometime in 2027.
Roberts said this is just the first phase of construction, which will include mostly safety and accessibility improvements to the building. The cost is about $18.9 million.
She said the building as is isn’t considered safe or accessible, so it can’t technically be open at all. The first phase of construction will help make the 43,000-square-foot building able to function as an arts center.
The first phase will include upgrading bathrooms, putting in more toilets and an elevator, electric work and a new air intake system in the basement. Fire alarms and sprinklers will be installed, and ADA ramps will be built for better access to the front of the building.
Roberts said they’re also making improvements outside the armory that include new sidewalks, bike parking, new striping for the back parking area, safer crosswalks, and EV charging stations.
She said the city received a grant from the Department of Commerce for $1.5 million to add solar and battery storage to the armory building.
“So that’s a separate project that we’re doing at the same time, and what that’s going to allow us to do is make the building more climate friendly,” Roberts said. “And over time, we want to step into making this kind of a model for how you can take historic buildings and make them energy efficient and resilient.”
Roberts said the city worked with the eight nonprofit anchor tenants that will call the armory home once it’s back open to make sure the design for the new spaces function the way they need.
Due to safety requirements and the lack of fire alarms, sprinklers and an elevator, Roberts was only able to open the armory building for reservations this year.
“They would have to request it through me, and then I would work with city safety officials to make sure that the event itself would be safe within the context of the building for the people who were coming in,” she said.
The space has seen a number of smaller gatherings, but no large scale events yet. Roberts said even she will be moving out of the building for construction, which will close the space for 12 to 18 months.
“But when we reopen, we’ll be fully open, and people will be able to make reservations in a regular way, and we’ll be able to have more people in the building, which will be really, really nice,” Roberts said. “Right now, in some spaces, even though they’re huge, we can only have 49 people in them at a time because of safety standards.”
Funding the armory renovation
Roberts said the City Council was presented on July 8 with the funding strategy for both the armory arts campus and the Yelm Highway Community Park project.
She said the city has $2.6 million in grants scheduled for the armory project, with another $800,000 in grants possibly on the way. There’s also almost $1 million cash in hand, and $250,000 from Metropolitan Parks District (OMPD) tax revenue.
The city also has access to about $3 million in non-voted utility tax dollars that are slated for parks acquisition and development of properties.
The remaining cost will be covered through debt financing. The city approved a debt financing plan for both parks projects, which will add $5.5 million to the armory. Annual payments of $1.3 million to $1.5 million would be paid on the bond starting in 2027 using revenue from the voted utility tax and OMPD funds.
“Both of these projects are fully shovel ready, and they have multiple millions of dollars of grants that have been awarded to them,” Roberts said. “So it’s the right time to do this project, and we’re really excited about it, because that means that we’re going to be able to open an art center in the next couple of years, which has been a long awaited need in the community.”
She said there’s going to be a lot more work that needs to be done even after the armory reopens. The total project cost in current dollars is estimated between $30 million and $33 million.
Kickoff to construction event
The city is hosting a construction kickoff event at 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, before the armory closes until 2027. The event will start with remarks from Mayor Dontae Payne and other city officials. That will be followed by the unveiling of a “Closed for Construction” banner, then a final tour of the armory for the media.
Roberts said folks will be able to stay up to date with the construction project through the city’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Digest email newsletter.
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