New Fulton County election warehouse opens soon

The need to consolidate all election functions drove construction of Fulton County’s new warehouse in Fairburn, but the 600,000-square-foot building will house much more.

Dubbed the Fulton County Elections Hub & Operations Center, the warehouse at 5600 Campbellton Fairburn Road in Union City has room to store election equipment and accommodate the hundreds of workers needed on a busy election night — plus office space for Emergency Management, Information Technology, Clerk of Courts, Real Estate & Asset Management, and evidence storage for the sheriff’s office, marshals’ service and county police department.

The new facility will consolidate seven warehouse sites, said Mike Rowicki, county director of Strategy & Performance Management.

Some of the old facilities are in poor condition, County Manager Dick Anderson said. The cost of the new warehouse is offset by the elimination of those older leases and the efficiency that consolidation brings, he said.

Election functions began moving to the new building July 10 and will be fully moved by the end of the month, said Nadine Williams, director of elections. The county is aiming for an Aug. 3 ribbon-cutting followed by public open houses.

Planning started two and a half years ago as part of the county’s ongoing efforts to centralize operations, but the project was delayed by COVID-19, Rowicki said.

Past a large lobby, five windows will allow for on-site voter registration. Through a set of glass doors is a large meeting room wired for recording and broadcasting, with rows of chairs for the public.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

“All the Board of Registration & Elections meetings will be held here,” Rowicki said. An adjacent room is filled with cubicles for a 125-seat call center. That will be staffed to answer public questions during elections, and can be used by other departments the rest of the time, he said.

In the center of the building is a big tiled cafeteria, with a kitchen area and rows of tables. It will serve the those working late on election nights.

There are eight classrooms for training, primarily for election workers, but usable by other departments.

“We have over 3,000 poll workers,” Williams said. Half of those will be trained at the new warehouse, and the rest at a facility near the county’s north end, she said.

Early voting will also be available at the new site through a side entrance, Williams said. The department’s goal for 2024 elections is to have 40 early voting locations, the most they’ve ever had, open for three weeks, she said.

Much of the elections space is at the back of the warehouse, a cavernous room with 13 bay doors for trucks carrying ballot marking devices. Some of those machines are already in the warehouse, behind a chain-link fence. There is room for testing and programming machines, and a glassed-in “fishbowl” for the one state-authorized computer server into which ballot totals are uploaded. An adjacent room will handle mail-in absentee ballots.

There are cameras throughout, and when ballots are being counted the public will be able to watch from a viewing area around the perimeter, Rowicki said.

A TV control room allows meetings and other functions to be livestreamed from any part of the building.

Following the 2020 election the county wanted not just more efficiency, but more transparency and better security for elections, Anderson said.

The county is paying $3.9 million a year to lease the building, Rowicki said. The lease runs for 15 years, with two five-year renewals and an option for the county to buy it, he said.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

The 37-acre site is owned by the Union City Development Authority. The warehouse was built in 2022.

The county invested $29 million in building improvements, furniture and fixtures. Combined with the property owner’s investment, it’s a $100 million development.

Overall, the project is $800,000 under budget, county officials said.

A large room can serve as a 911 backup center, and another nearby contains more than 80 work stations that could be used by any department in an emergency.

Another county goal was to create a place that could be used as an emergency operations center in case of disaster, when county offices in downtown Atlanta might not be operational or accessible, Anderson said. The presence of Information Technology and law enforcement, coupled with the flexible work space, would allow county operations to continue uninterrupted, he said.

The county is talking to MARTA about adding a stop at the new warehouse for employees and the public, Anderson said.

Rowicki led a building tour July 11, accompanied by Williams and Timothy Diamond, deputy director of Real Estate & Asset Management; and part of the way by Fulton Commission Chairman Robb Pitts and Anderson.

“It’s impressive,” County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said during a recent tour. He called the new warehouse “light-years” better than the old facilities.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Previously election functions have been scattered between two warehouses and a downtown office, Williams said. Changes to voting systems required more personnel and resources, according to the county.

The county is being unexpectedly forced out of its election location in Hapeville, so something new had to be found anyway, Anderson said. Consolidation in a county-controlled facility will prevent such disruptions, he said.

A second current elections location will continue to be used by other agencies. The downtown elections office will remain open for early voting and will be repurposed during future work on the Government Center at 141 Pryor St., according to the county.

Previously, the county had to rent extra space to handle busy election nights. In 2020 the county rented 200,000 square feet for ballot counting at the Georgia World Congress Center. That cost more than a million dollars, Rowicki said.

And that room was only available due the lack of other rentals during the pandemic, Anderson said. Now there is enough room for hand-counting in the new warehouse.