[5] Lacey is located along Interstate 5 between Olympia and the Nisqually River, which marks the border with Pierce County and Joint Base Lewis–McChord.

[24][25] The largest retail area in Lacey is the South Sound Center, which opened in 1966 and was originally an enclosed mall until 2000.

[26] Plans to develop a city center near the mall were considered as early as the 1990s to revitalize the area around the civic campus.

[27] The Lacey Gateway was developed in the 2000s and is home to a Cabela's store, but failed to attract other major tenants.

[29] The city designated 500 acres (200 ha) of land in the Hawks Prairie area for industrial use in the 1990s with the intent of attracting high-tech businesses.

[30] In 2003, retailer Target opened its West Coast distribution center in Lacey with 1.7 million square feet (160,000 m2) of space—among the largest warehouses in the U.S. by usable volume.

[34] It is working to meet its Alternative Energy Initiative, which includes using 100 percent green electrical energy in all of its municipal buildings, parks, utilities, and 3,000 streetlights and traffic signals; providing electric vehicle charging stations to visitors and employees at its city hall and library campus; and initiating conversion of its municipal fleet to energy efficient vehicles powered by electricity, hybrid technology, and 80/20 biofuel.

[35] Lacey has received the "Tree City, USA" designation from the National Arbor Day Foundation for twenty six years.

[38] The Olympia-based South Puget Sound Community College opened a satellite center in a Hawks Prairie strip mall in 1995 to serve Lacey.

[39] The college had also purchased 54.5 acres (22.1 ha) in 2005 to build a larger permanent campus, but sold the land after issues with wetlands mitigation were discovered.

[39][40] Lacey is bisected from west to east by Interstate 5, a north–south freeway connecting Seattle to Portland, Oregon.

[20] The first diverging diamond interchange in Washington opened in August 2020 at a junction in Lacey between Interstate 5 and Marvin Road (State Route 510).

The agency also runs express buses from Olympia and Lacey to Lakewood with onward connections to other transit systems.

[50] The city also has an off-campus emergency room for the MultiCare Capital Medical Center, the other major hospital in the Olympia area.