Thurston County plans new voter services center in Tumwater as another project stalls
Thurston County officials hope to open a new voter services center in time for the 2024 presidential primary election, but plans to renovate their ballot processing center have stalled.
The current voter services center is run by the Auditor’s Office at 2400 Evergreen Park Drive SW in Olympia, otherwise known as Building 5 of the county’s main courthouse complex.
The new center will occupy one of the buildings at the county’s Mottman Complex, located at the intersection of Ferguson Street Southwest and 29th Avenue in Tumwater. The county purchased this complex for $5.6 million in 2021 with the intent of turning it into an expansive election center.
Presidential election years are typically the busiest for the Auditor’s Office, Auditor Mary Hall told the Board of County Commissioners last week. On election day 2020, she said more than 1,200 people visited the voter services center in person.
“The space we have in Building 5 is not adequate at all,” Hall said. “We need a permanent home, but we also need to find a space that can accommodate us, hopefully by next March’s presidential primary election.”
County commissioners Carolina Mejia and Gary Edwards voted 2-0 to approve an amendment to a $221,201 contract with Thomas Architecture Studios (TAS) to design renovations for the Mottman voter services center. Commissioner Tye Menser was excused from the meeting.
The renovations will include exterior and tenant improvements to one of the three buildings at the complex, according to county documents. The budget for construction is about $1.8 million and work is expected to be completed in early 2024.
Assistant County Manager Robin Campbell told the board they have about $1.9 million available to fund the project.
A previous estimate had the cost at about $2.2 million, but Campbell said Hall was willing to forgo some improvements, such as a drive-through window, to bring the cost down.
Embarking on this project now also allows the county to move its voter services center once instead of twice, Campbell said. As it stands, the county needs to move the voter services center out of Building 5, and potentially into Building 1, to make progress on its courthouse campus improvement project.
Campbell said moving the voter services center too many times in a short time period may create a “where’s Waldo?” effect that confuses voters.
Though there is an urgent need for this project, it was not the county’s priority. Hall previously hoped to have improvements made to the existing ballot processing center at the Mottman Complex first, but those plans stalled due to a lack of funding.
“We still need to expand the ballot processing center,” Hall said. “That need is not going away, but we need both. If we don’t have the funding, we can’t do half the project in the ballot processing center. It’s not feasible.”
Hall said her office has funding for security improvements at the ballot processing center, but not for an expansion. For now, she said it makes more sense to complete the new voter services center and search for new funding later for the ballot processing center.
“I’m just wondering if we might not go out for a voter approved excess levy bond measure to pay for it, I don’t know, because we’re just not getting anywhere with grant opportunities,” Hall said.
Campbell said the construction, design and soft costs for expanding the ballot processing center would total about $4.7 million.
