Benton County opens $14M ‘one-stop shop’ with new administration building
Benton County residents who want to apply for a marriage license, pay their property taxes or sit in on a commission meeting can now do it all in one location.
The county officially opened its new Administration Building on Monday with a ribbon cutting and grand opening ceremony.
The building at 7122 W. Okanogan Place in Kennewick joins the jail, District and Superior courts, and clerk, prosecutor and sheriff’s offices on the Justice Center campus.
The Benton Franklin Health District and a maintenance facility building also sit across the parking lot.
Officials are dubbing the 23-acre campus a “one-stop shop” for nearly all county business.
The assessor, auditor and treasurer’s office all moved from the Kennewick Annex on West Canal Drive into the new three-story building over the past month.
Other offices inside the 44,000-square-foot building include the county commissioners and administration, which encompasses finance, human resources, information technology, risk management and communications.
The building, which is near Belfair Street and Rio Grande Avenue, also has a basement and about 7,000 square feet of empty office space for future improvements.
MacPherson previously said that the building will “provide county employees with increased safety, efficiency and improved communication.”
Banlin Construction of Kennewick broke ground in February 2020 after the commissioners awarded a $13.6 million contract. The final tab ended up coming in just over $14 million with numerous change orders over the 21 months of construction.
Essential services will remain available to the public at the Benton County Courthouse in Prosser.
Meanwhile, the county’s planning, building and public works departments moved into a new Public Services Building at 102206 E. Wiser Parkway in late 2019.
The offices inside the main Justice Center building that have been vacated by the commissioners and other county employees will be gutted and remodeled to give the clerks, prosecutors and court staff more room.