The plan to move the state office building to downtown Shreveport has been pitched before. The current building at Fairfield and Jordan was built in the 1930's and it is in sad shape.

The State of Louisiana is looking for alternatives. One would be a new location in the downtown business district where there are several vacant properties. The question is how much longer can the state continue to pump money into this dilapidated building in Shreveport? It needs a major facelift. Every day, more problems with the building are discovered.

Moving the state building downtown was a hot topic when the Cross Bayou plan was being pitched to city leaders, but as we know that $1 billion dollar development fell through. The organizers could not win support for their big dream.

Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins hosted a meeting with local leaders and State Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne to talk about some options.

The state did solicit bids for renovations to the aging building this summer, but both of the bids were rejected.

RRAC Contractors bid $4,850,000 and the ELA Group bid $5,092,500 to do the work. But the project was expected to cost about $2.7 million. For that reason, no contract was awarded.

The state did award a contract to Corporate Roofing and Industrial Contracting for $590,700 to put a new roof on the building. KEEL News caught up with Dardenne to ask him about a timetable and how serious the state is about making such a move.

Dardenne tells KEEL News there is some interest in the old building, but he can not say yet who is interested in it. He did tell us the State will not move to one location and leave an empty building somewhere else. But he is optimistic if this deal does go through several state agencies could be combined into one building which would save the state money on rental expenses.

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