Pierce County vacating building owned by election foe

Pierce County is uprooting and consolidating departmental offices in a move to simplify operations and save money.

The office space changes come in the wake of last fall’s voter rejection of a county plan to build a $127 million general services building on the Pacific Avenue site of the former Puget Sound Hospital. The new building would have consolidated county offices now housed in more than a dozen leased and county-owned offices.

Opponents of the plan contended the new building would cost too much and wouldn’t create the job reductions that County Executive Pat McCarthy promised.

After voters said no to the new building plan, the county said it would study how it could save money or centralize operations without building a new structure. One of the outcomes of that process: The county will vacate a building owned by one of the biggest donors to the opposition campaign.

Under the plan announced to county staffers:

The county’s information technology department will move to the first floor of the former Columbia Bank Building at 1102 Broadway by the first of next year. That department is now spread among leased space in the Merit Building at 615 S. Ninth St. near the County-City Building, the seventh floor of the County-City Building and in the 950 S. Fawcett Building.

Under a tentative deal with the bank building owners, the county will pay $19 a square foot for the space. That compares with $21.62 a square foot in the Merit Building.

The Merit Building is owned by 615 S. 9th Street LLC. State corporate registrations list Leonard Zarelli of Lake Tapps as the agent for the company. Zarelli is also listed as the agent for Quad Associates. Together, the two companies contributed $20,000 to the referendum that defeated the county’s plans to build on the old hospital site.

County workers have complained that the Merit Building’s heating and ventilation system needs updating. The new lease will put all information technology staffers in one space.

“Locating IT in one location addresses many of our business challenges during incidents, encourages more conversation and help us collaborate on projects. This will certainly streamline our work, add efficiency and gain new effectiveness. Being in one location has been our hope for many years, and we are so very fortunate to have this opportunity approved by the executive,” said information technology chief Linda Gerull in a memo to employees.

The five-story former bank building was built in 1906 as a department store. The Bon Marche (now Macy’s) occupied that building downtown until it moved to the Tacoma Mall more than 40 years ago. Columbia Bank left the building when it built a new headquarters on A Street in 2001. The structure underwent a major renovation in 1999 and has been updated since a Bellevue development company bought it in 2013.

Several law and financial management firms, as well as the county’s facilities management department, are housed on the building’s other floors.

Other county offices now housed in the Merit Building — human resources and budget and finance — will move to the county-owned 950 Fawcett Building. The county’s vacation of the Merit Building will leave the 1977-vintage structure empty unless new tenants are signed.

Records storage now in the 950 Fawcett Building will be moving to an as-yet-undetermined location.

Libby Catalinich, the county’s communications manager, said other department moves are possible, but none has been announced.

This story was originally published July 12, 2016 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Pierce County vacating building owned by election foe."