So what is that big new building under construction on Capitol Hill?

The $208 million, four-story structure is set to be shared by a new museum and the Utah Legislature, even though part-time lawmakers and their full-time staff already occupy much of the historic Capitol as well as the other two office buildings at the Capitol Hill complex.

With a multistory atrium under a skylight, a sweeping marble staircase and marble floors, the new building is intended as a suitable showcase for Utah’s collection of art and historic artifacts rather than just replacing the State Office Building that anchored the north end of the complex.

“Its’a very specialized building. It’s not by any means an office building,” said Andy Marr, interim director of the state Division of Facilities and Construction Management, calling the structure set for completion early next year a “public-facing treasure.”

During a recent tour, Marr and Capitol Preservation Board Executive Director Dana Jones pointed out the details of the 168,576-square-foot space that mirror the neoclassical style of the historic Capitol building dedicated in 1916.

The first-floor “Museum of Utah,” part of the Utah Department of Cultural and Community Engagement, is billed as Utah’s first state history museum and a new public “gateway” to Capitol Hill.

The building will also feature what’s known as a belvedere, a place for the public to look out over the central plaza; pressurized, climate-controlled basement storage; a second-floor conference center that can hold 500 people; and nearly 400 new underground parking spots.

At the same time, the state is spending another $73 million for renovations to the central plaza fountain and the existing underground parking used by lawmakers and other state officials, for a total of $281 million in construction projects at the complex.

Marilee Richins, deputy director of the Utah Department of Government Operations that’s overseeing the project, acknowledged the price tag for the new North Building is high. At the 2022 groundbreaking ceremony, the project was expected to come in at $168 million.

“As you can see, it is very expensive to build a new but historically compatible building which must be of museum standards and quality,” Richins said, blaming construction inflation for the increase from 2022.

Even so, she made it clear she believes taxpayers are getting a good value.

“I think actually, we’re getting a great price when you look at a historically correct building that finishes off the plaza. This is a state treasure,” Richins said, adding that can’t be compared to the cost of regular commercial office space because “there’s a huge difference.”

Years of no ‘political will’ to replace aging building

The state had flirted for many years with replacing the 1960s-era building long known as the “S.O.B.,” including while planning for the House and Senate office buildings that were completed in 2002.

“There just wasn’t political will,” said David Hart, the former architect of the state Capitol who left at the end of 2009 when it became clear state leaders weren’t ready to fund a new State Office Building, then priced at around $98 million.

The reason, he said, was so much money had already been spent on Capitol Hill, including well over $200 million just for the multiyear restoration and earthquake retrofit of the Capitol building completed in early 2008.

Now a Salt Lake City-based architect working on projects around the country, Hart has held onto a framed rendering of the building intended to complete the original vision for the Capitol grounds from more than a century ago, in the hopes he’d see the “S.O.B.” replaced.

“I hated it,” Hart said of that building’s avant-garde design, cutting edge at the time. “I felt like it didn’t complement the Capitol. I like modern architecture. It’s not that. I felt like it wasn’t responsive to the site.”

Not only was the modernist structure viewed as out of place on the historic grounds, there were issues with the building that prevented just an exterior makeover, including the inability to meet current fire suppression and seismic standards.

Still, the push to finally deal with the State Office Building didn’t come until 2019.

On the first day of the 2019 Legislature, then-House Speaker Brad Wilson and Senate President Stuart Adams both announced in their inaugural speeches that it was time to look at replacing the building, surprising many in state government.

How the North Building moved forward

But later in 2019, some of the $110 million lawmakers set aside for the project went toward the purchase of the sprawling American Express office buildings in Taylorsville as a new home for executive branch employees, including some 700 on Capitol Hill.

At that point, the State Office Building appeared to be slated for demolition, with no timetable for starting construction on a replacement. Instead, legislative leaders went with a “Plan B” that did not including funding for a new building.

The site was to be landscaped once the old building was torn down, and a parking structure added. Also, an adjacent data center would be remodeled to safely store the state’s artworks and artifacts stuck in the leaky basement of the Rio Grande Building downtown.

But Wilson said he and others started having second thoughts about waiting on a new building behind the Capitol. By 2022, the North Capitol Building was at last a go and work got underway to tear down the old building.

“There were a lot of reasons why it made sense,” Wilson, now the CEO of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games, said earlier this year about the state deciding to move forward with a new building after so many years.

Topping the list was the long-standing call for a place to display the state’s art and artifacts collection, valued at well over $100 million. Why not do that at a museum at the Capitol, already visited daily by busloads of schoolchildren and tourists?

The ability to add more office space on Capitol Hill also was a plus, but ultimately didn’t drive the decision, Wilson said. There will be nearly 60,000 additional square feet of office space on the top two floors of the new building.

“The catalyst for this was always the museum and the archives, and putting that at a place on Capitol Hill where you could have the synergies that came from interfacing with government and interacting with the state’s history,” he said.

The museum will let Utah schoolchildren “experience the state’s history in a unique and amazing way.” Wilson said. “It’s impossible to calculate the value of that. The offices — two floors of offices — are just a bonus that’s coming with it.”

House Minority Whip Jen Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, a member of the state Capitol Preservation Board that manages the Capitol Hill complex, said the massive influx of federal COVID-19 pandemic assistance helped free up state funds for the new building.

“All of a sudden, we were flush with cash,” Dailey-Provost said, able to cover the cost of many state services with the federal dollars that started arriving in 2020, allowing state dollars to go towards projects like Capitol improvements.

“A big chunk of that money was used to tear down the old building and put up a new one,” she said, along with adding much-needed parking and a new off-street turnout for buses. Dailey-Provost, whose district includes the Capitol Hill neighborhood, said those are big pluses.

Still, she said, some of her constituents aren’t sold on the new structure.

“I know that there are people in my community, especially on Capitol Hill, that have some heartburn over having the museum there because there is a concern that it will increase traffic,” Dailey-Provost said.

“Dealing with Capitol traffic really affects quality of life for people on Capitol Hill,” she said, calling the concern valid. “It is unfortunate. But it is also a truth that you know when you move to Capitol Hill. I hope we have been able to compromise.”

Her goal, Dailey-Provost said, is to enhance the public’s access to where laws are made. Getting rid of an unwelcoming building she called a “cubicle farm” for executive branch workers to make way for not just a museum but also more space for the legislative branch does that, she said.

“I just want people to feel more engaged and a part of the ‘People’s House’ than they do,” Dailey-Provost said. “I can’t tell you how many people have asked me, ‘Hey, are people allowed to go to the Capitol? Can people just go there?’ The fact that’s not universally known makes me sad.”

What the Legislature’s expanded Capitol Hill presence means

Wilson said the added legislative space on Capitol Hill doesn’t mean lawmakers are heading toward meeting year-round. Instead, he said, having more room for the Legislature’s staff makes its easier to stick with a 45-day annual session.

“One of the ways you keep a part-time Legislature, which I think is in our best interest for sure, is you have professional staff like Legislative Research and General Counsel that are full time. You want that part to grow,” Wilson said.

Even though the “last thing we want in the state of Utah is a full-time Legislature,” Wilson said the job of lawmaker has gotten bigger, making more work for staff. For example, he said, lawmakers used to handle their own constituent services but now need help keeping up.

The relocation of hundreds of executive department employees from the old State Office Building to what’s now referred to as the “T-S.O.B.” in Taylorsville has altered the role of Capitol Hill, the former speaker said.

“It’s really transformed into a place where the primary function is where citizens engage with public officials and government leaders. We need to have a space for that to happen,” Wilson said, but not just for the legislative branch.

He said there also should be places on Capitol Hill for the public to interact with the governor and Utah’s other constitutional officers who are elected by voters statewide — the lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and auditor.

At least, that’s was what being discussed before Wilson resigned from the Legislature in 2023 to run for the U.S. Senate. At that point, he said the additional office space in the new building had not been allocated.

“It’s one complex up there on Capitol Hill,” Wilson said. “There should be additional space available for everybody.”

Exactly what that will look like when the new building is completed and legislative staff relocated remains to be seen. Lawmakers launched an effort to secure more space in the Capitol itself, which made news at the end of the 2025 Legislature.

Utah State Auditor Tina Cannon spoke out about a last-minute change to a bill she said would force her out of the Capitol to make room for more legislative offices. The bill ended up being pulled amid the controversy, but the Legislature is expected to keep looking at the issue.

Lawmakers already have individual offices on Capitol Hill, but many are in the House and Senate office buildings, rather than in the presumably more prestigious Capitol that’s still home to the governor and other statewide elected leaders.

Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, declined to discuss the new building and its impact on the Legislature’s space needs. His office said the legislative and executive branches worked together to determine how space in the new North Building would be split.

Marvin Dodge, executive director of the Utah Department of Government Operations, said late last year there were conversations about that at the highest level, between Gov. Spencer Cox, Adams and current House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper.

But Dodge just chuckled at the suggestion that the Legislature might be seen as taking over the Capitol Hill complex, given how much space lawmakers and their staff have in each of the four buildings.

“As you can imagine, it’s prime space,” he said. “Everybody loves to have a space on Capitol Hill. I don’t happen to be one of them because I know how bad the parking gets during the (legislative) session in particular.”