Hours after being sworn-in as Macon-Bibb County’s elections supervisor June 15, Tom Gillon briefed the Board of Elections on the upcoming move down Eisenhower Parkway.

In the last board meeting at the current location of 2525 Pio Nono Ave., Gillon said: “Tuesday morning (June 20), bright and early, they’ll start moving furniture and all the major parts of this office to the mall.”

The Macon-Bibb County Commission unanimously appointed Gillon last week after he had served as interim supervisor for about 18 months since the resignation of Jeanetta Watson in January of 2022. A dispute over the selection process led the board to sue the mayor and county commissioners, but a judge dismissed the case in May.

The Board of Elections is the first of several county offices to relocate to the western-most corner of the Macon Mall, closest to Bloomfield Road.

Hull Property Group donated the sprawling property to Macon-Bibb County and the Urban Development Authority under an agreement initiated in September 2021.

Dunwody/Beeland architects redesigned the bottom floor of the old Sears department store to house the elections office, two courtrooms for the Macon-Bibb County Courthouse Annex, a large community meeting room and atrium, and part of the new location for the Middle Georgia Regional Commission.

Nearby storefronts on that end of the mall are being converted to a library branch and offices for the Planning & Zoning Commission and SAFEbuilt building services.

“We will be out of here by the end of the month,” Gillon said of the Pio Nono location.

The staff is expected to be able to serve the public until the IT equipment is transferred to the mall, he told the board.

In the interim, Gillon said it should only take a few hours to reconnect the network at the mall.

“With just the network and a laptop we can accommodate any walk-ins or phone calls, though perhaps a bit more slowly,” Gillon stated Friday evening in an email responding to an inquiry from The Macon Newsroom. “I don’t expect us to be completely down for more than a day.”

Whatever the duration of the transfer period, Gillon said most services can be accessed online at Georgia’s My Voter Page at mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/.

Gillon anticipates opening the new office in early July, with a grand opening likely to follow some weeks later.

“This is a much better-timed move since there isn’t an election coming up. It gives us time to get settled and test our systems,” Gillon said in Macon-Bibb County’s Staff Spotlight published Friday. “Having a large space on our own is a huge benefit to our operations.”

The new office is spacious with ample room in the adjacent atrium for rows of people to line up out of the elements for advanced voting. In a recent tour of the new office, some board members raised concerns about the distance from the parking lot to the front door of the office, which is at least about 175 yards.

Board members have discussed providing some sort of cart or mobility assistance for the elderly and disabled, but the plan has yet to be finalized.

Personnel will have months to get settled before preparing for the next election cycle, which begins March 5 with the Presidential Preference Primary leading to the Nov. 5 General Election in late 2024.

The office has a sign ready to put up at 2525 Pio Nono to direct the public to the new office, which is 2.6 miles away.

– Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.