The new Alabama State House in Montgomery could be ready for lawmakers and staff in 2026, with the first regular legislative session scheduled to be held in the building in early 2027, the Alabama Reflector reported Sept. 3, 2025.

Othni Lathram, secretary of the state Legislative Council, told lawmakers at budget hearings in late August that staff would move into the new building in time for the 2026 midterm elections. Legislators would hold their first session in the new State House a few months later, he added.

The 460,000-sq.-ft. building will have 11 committee rooms. Among them there is one joint committee room that will hold up to 200 members of the public as well as one large and one medium committee room for each chamber that will hold 150 and 100 members of the public, respectively; and six small committee rooms designed for 75 people.

Work on the modern State House, the first of its kind built in the United States since 1977, began in 2023.

It is being constructed by Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA), the statewide employee pension-plan provider. Under the terms of a contract, RSA will earn an 8 percent return on its investment by leasing the building to the Alabama Legislature.

The building's design includes six columns and a dome to blend in with the other structures within Montgomery's Capitol complex.

The six-story building will replace the current State House, first occupied in 1986 and intended as a temporary location while renovations to the Alabama State Capitol took place. A longer-than-expected renovation time for the Capitol building, though, as well as the desire by lawmakers for the additional space the new location provided, effectively made the move permanent.

However, the structure has been saddled with numerous problems, including mold issues and hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance. Building a new State House rather than renovating the current one, Lathram said, would not have been cost efficient.

"There would have been no practical improvements. It would have been just getting core functions up to date after years and years of neglect," he recently told state lawmakers.

In spring of 2024, the Alabama Legislature authorized the Legislative Council to find a contractor to demolish the current State House after lawmakers and staff move out in 2027. The area where the building sits is expected to be turned into green space.

Lathram explained that the new facility, estimated to cost $400 million, is projected to be under budget, Alabama Reflector noted.

Lawmakers have appropriated $155 million up front for the project through Alabama's budgets and supplemental appropriations. The goal, Lathram said, is to get $70 million appropriated through the Legislature in the fiscal year 2027 budgets and finance the remaining $175 million.

"We have not grown government during … three cycles of inflated budgets and additional revenue," state Rep. Rex Reynolds told the Reflector. "I think we'll look back to see this was a huge manner in which we're going to reduce our debt service on this building by putting that much cash in there."

His colleague in the Legislature, Sen. Greg Albritton, chair of the senate fnance and taxation general fund committee, said the remaining appropriations would have to be split between the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and General Fund.

Albritton added that in January 2026, the Legislature needs to confront its obligation to look at "another $75 million split between the ETF and General Fund. And we've got to look at putting a new line in the budget … for the operation of the upcoming building so that when we get in [it], we'll have the money to function there."

The new State House's $35 million parking deck, which is included in the total construction budget, will include spots for all lawmakers and staff, as well as 100 spaces for the public, according to Lathram.

Schools often visit the State House for tours and park their buses on the adjacent streets. To remedy the congestion that causes, planners have included an area for buses to park where the current State House now sits.