by Rachel Witkowski
Staff Writer
After getting more than $1.1 million from the City, the new Supervisor of Elections satellite office is almost complete.
When finished, the two-story building will have taken about three months to renovate. It’s located in the former Dots Fashion facility in the Gateway Mall and includes the main warehouse, a branch office with early voting booths, a tech support area, training rooms, a call center, a computer ballot tabulation room, absentee mailer system room, a signature check room and a sample precinct room. The sample room will display how to properly set up a precinct.
“It allows us to serve the public in a way that we will be able to do a lot more than we’ve done in the past. It will all be done in one location,” said Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland. “And it also offers the public more access (to voting and the elections office).”
The 52,000 square-foot space is a huge increase from the previous warehouse facility on Commonwealth Avenue that had 21,000 square feet. Holland said he started looking at several buildings in May 2005, including the old Downtown public library, but he selected the building off Golfair Boulevard because of the size and the 100-car capacity parking lot. City Council approved an appropriation of $750,000 for construction and about $430,000 for infrastructure costs at the beginning of the year. The elections office also transferred about $300,000 to the new satellite office budget, according to Holland. If the entire project exceeds the amount originally approved, the contractor will pay for any excess costs, he said.
Though the main elections office Downtown will not be moving, some employees will rotate between buildings, said Holland.
“We always want to keep a Downtown presence,” he said.
The new office will also be used as the primary spot for candidates, guests and Elections staff to witness the final results of election night on large TV screens. Holland said everything should be complete by Aug. 1, just in time for the fall election.