By the 1910s, the state realized the need for a new office building, and funds were appropriated beginning in 1917 for a new structure.

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

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.