Buncombe County weighs new warehouse and consolidated elections facility

Buncombe County officials and the Buncombe County Board of Elections spent more than two hours on options to consolidate storage and operational space for elections into a single warehouse-style facility, discussing needs, cost ranges and a multi-year schedule for planning, temporary relocation and possible construction.

The presentation outlined an advanced-planning program that would provide roughly 100,000 square feet of combined warehouse, records, training and office space, with elections-specific requirements of about 28,560 square feet and a 3,600-square-foot training/multiuse mock‑election area. County project manager Robert Brown told the board the study evaluated three main approaches: build new, purchase and renovate, or lease and renovate.

Why it matters: Elections staff told the board that centralized, secure storage and adjacent training and mock‑election space would reduce fragmentation the department says has hampered operations and security. Board members urged county leaders to treat elections’ statutory, year‑round functions as a high planning priority and to avoid repeating prior…