It’s spring, so construction season is in full swing in Carson City. There are a bunch of projects going on, but today we’re going to look at one of the State office projects. A couple of weeks ago we talked about how the Nevada State Legislature keeps growing, but it’s worth touching on again as part of this story. Until 1970 the Senate and Assembly were located inside the historic Capitol building. Despite enlarging the building in 1914, they outgrew that space, so in 1971 they opened a new dedicated building just for the Legislature, at the corner of Fourth and Carson Streets. That building was fine until the mid 1990s, when they had to expand and build more office space in the back of the new building. They also expanded into the Sedway building at Fifth and Stewart.

That brings us to 2025. Once again, the Legislature is out of space. Specifically, the Legislative Counsel Bureau, which provides support and research services for the legislators. Well, actually they’ve been complaining about being out of space since 2006, and talking about more expansion for 20 years. But the State has been moving very slow with projects like this for the last couple of decades. So it took until now for them to finally get serious about building a new office building on Fifth Street, next door to Sedway, along with a parking garage on Sixth.

Construction has been going on for a few months, so let’s see what they’ve been up to.

There has been a parking lot here at Fifth and Plaza for 35 years, ever since two little houses on this corner were torn down. I think they’ve had this earmarked as expansion space the whole time, and they’re finally getting around to using it.

The parking lot was torn up, and this is going to be the main footprint of the new building, right here on Fifth Street next to Sedway.

The current Legislature Building, which is still finishing up a remodel, is seen across the street to the left.

Behind the main building will be a parking garage.

The garage will have 4 stories, and it will replace the parking lots that are being torn out for this project. It will also be open to the public, which will help with the parking situation during downtown events.

In all the complex will cover 4 blocks, but this land has been nothing but parking lots for decades, so nothing notable is being lost.

On the Stewart Street side of the construction they are building this cinder block facilities building

The Sedway Building is remaining for now, even though the discussions around this project have mentioned removing and replacing it as a possibility one day. For the moment, though, it is safe. And with how long it takes the State to get moving on these projects, it’s probably good for another few decades.