Architect Edwyn A. Bowd of Lansing was commissioned to design the building, and plans were approved in 1918.

[2] On February 8, 1951, the building was intentionally set on fire by a state office employee.

The following morning, part of the seventh floor collapsed down to the next level, which destroyed a large number of state historical records.

[5] The Elliott-Larsen Building is a six-story (originally seven-story) U-shaped Classical Revival structure with a flat roof, with a facade of cream-colored sandstone above a granite basement.

A cornice separates the second and third floors, forming a base for four-story pilasters with Tuscan capitals above.