In 2022, with many office workers still working from home full time due to the pandemic, King County decided to permanently shutter its downtown Administration Building, an unloved architectural specimen that it said needed expensive upgrades and was no longer necessary.
Next month, the Administration Building will unshutter — upgrades not done — and office workers will return, as the county searches for buildings to accommodate County Executive Girmay Zahilay’s push to get county workers back in the office.
The reopening of the Administration Building, which sits next to the county courthouse, is part of a multimillion-dollar push to find space for thousands of employees who had been working remotely for years…