The headquarters of the Washington State Department of Transportation on July 30, 2026. (Photo by Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)
The Washington State Department of Transportation is relocating employees and scaling back access to its aging headquarters on the Capitol Campus in Olympia amid continuing concerns about the building’s structural integrity.
On average, fewer than 50 people a day work in the four-story edifice on the east side of the campus, across the street from the Capitol. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, daily occupancy averaged about 840 employees.
“Over the years, the building has experienced ongoing maintenance issues and has documented seismic safety concerns. To prioritize employee safety, WSDOT is reassigning most employees who work in the building to other agency facilities throughout Thurston County,” Ryan Overton, agency communications director, said in an email.
Agency leaders began asking employees last fall to limit in-office work because of issues identified in a structural assessment by the Department of Enterprise Services, which owns the building, he said.
On Nov. 24, 2025, employees reported cracks in a lower-level office. A structural consultant hired by the Department of Enterprise Services carried out an emergency inspection. They examined the reported cracks, as well as horizontal cracking in the parking garage and found no buckling, concrete spalling or damage to the building’s structural columns, Overton said.
Though it remains open, employees “have been directed to minimize their time working in the building by using alternative meeting locations and maximizing flexible work options like telework,” he said. There is no immediate deadline for vacating the site.
Constructed between 1969 and 1970 for $8 million, the 183,000-square-foot building is designed in the shape of the letter H. It originally housed the state’s highway department before it became the Department of Transportation in 1977.
The agency, which rents the building from the Department of Enterprise Services, has apportioned roughly three-quarters of the space for offices and the remainder for uses like storage, a resource library, laboratories and a cafeteria.
Over the years, the transportation agency’s top leaders worked there and the Washington State Transportation Commission held public meetings in a conference room a few strides down a hall from the main public entrance. Today, those doors are locked and only employees with access cards can enter.
The headquarters isn’t the only aging structure in the Department of Transportation’s portfolio of facilities.
Of 286 primary buildings — those with more than 2,000 square feet of space — 129 were over 50 years old as of June 2022, according to the agency.
Every two years, buildings are examined and catalogued in good, fair, or poor condition. This information is used to prioritize what to repair and replace.
As of Sept. 2021, only 28 of those 286 buildings were deemed in good shape, with 132 listed as fair and 126 as poor, according to the most recent capital programs overview.
Meanwhile, the current state transportation budget required the agency to end its lease at the Edna Lucille Goodrich Building in Tumwater. Approximately 478 employees worked in that building and needed to be relocated by June 30.
That’s forced the transportation department to figure out where those employees and those in the headquarters could work.
In July, the department released an update on its efforts to consolidate operations into fewer locations. It notes that some of those workers are now fully remote while others have been dispersed to the State Materials Lab and Mottman Environmental Office, both located in Tumwater, and the Olympic Region Maintenance and Administration Facility in Lacey, according to the report.
Those sites are at capacity and lack space for services, emergency operations, and parking. They also are miles apart and prevent productive employee collaborations, the report notes.
“The need for a physical headquarters building remains essential to support critical operations, coordination and public service,” it reads.
Overton said the department is working with the governor’s office, Department of Enterprise Services and the Office of Financial Management on a long-term plan that could lead to reestablishing a headquarters in a different location.
The department “takes employee safety seriously. We are also complying with budget directives and facility constraints,” he said. “These changes reflect a broader statewide effort to reduce office space while making the best use of available state resources.”
Last week, the Department of Enterprise Services announced it was selling two 1950s-era office buildings that occupy a half-block in Olympia. The state acquired the buildings in the 1980s.
“These properties have outlived their usefulness,” Jo Aiken, the department’s chief operations officer, said in a statement.
This summer, the state is demolishing the 283,865-square-foot General Administration Building, which had been sitting vacant. Construction of that building was completed in 1956. Officials determined that renovating it would be costlier than a full replacement.
Source: Washington State Standard
This article was originally published by Washington State Standard.
