(Radio Iowa) – State officials have approved the purchase of an industrial property about two miles northwest of the Iowa Capitol, to consolidate Iowa Department of Public Safety facilities. Once the two building complex is occupied, two district offices for the Iowa State Patrol in Des Moines will be closed. A vehicle storage facility, a warehouse for supplies and the shop where squad cars are put together will also be relocated to the new site.

Governor Kim Reynolds and other statewide elected officials who serve on the state’s Executive Council approved spending 10-point-eight MILLION dollars to buy the centrally located property. This is one of several moves over the past few years that are changing the footprint of state government operations in Iowa’s Capital City.

Last August the Executive Council spent 21 MILLION dollars to buy a two-story office building on the south side of Des Moines — for staff from two state agencies who’ve been working in the Wallace Building across the street from the statehouse. In 2019, the state acquired an office building near the Des Moines Airport and it’s where the Iowa Economic Development Authority and Iowa Finance Authority are located.

This spring, the Iowa legislature approved spending five MILLION dollars to complete renovations of the Lucas State Office Building, which is directly east of the Iowa Capitol. The 45-hundred employees of the Department of Health and Human Services will work in the building once that project’s done. In 2011, the Iowa Utilities Board moved into a new building constructed on the southeast side of the Capitol Complex. And, in 2007, a restored building to the southwest of the Iowa Capitol became the headquarters of the Iowa Department of Public Safety.