The Idaho state Department of Labor says it has begun site work for a $4 million building in Post Falls and plans to move its Coeur d'Alene office there next fall.

The 17,800-square-foot structure will be the first office building to be constructed in the Post Falls Business Park, at the southeast corner of Thornton Street and Jenalan Avenue in east Post Falls, says JoAnn Edmiston, manager of the department's Coeur d'Alene office. The building will be adjacent to the Northern Idaho Advanced Care Hospital.

Guho Corp., of Eagle, Idaho, is the contractor on the project, and Insight Architects PA, of Boise, designed it. The project is expected to be completed in late October, and the department will move its entire Coeur d'Alene staff of 49 employees into the new building, Edmiston says. It will occupy the entire structure, and the state will own the building, she says.

The department's Coeur d'Alene office currently is in 17,000 square feet of leased office space in a multitenant office building at 1221 W. Ironwood Drive.

The Post Falls building, which is designed to surpass the state's energy-efficiency standards by 30 percent, is expected to cut the department's expenses by $250,000 a year, Edmiston says. Those savings will be invested in unemployment insurance tax compliance and benefit fraud and overpayment prevention, which is expected to generate sufficient returns to cover the cost of the building within five years, she says.

The Post Falls building also will have a large conference room with a capacity to hold 100 people, and another meeting room for up to 50 people, compared with two smaller meeting rooms now. "It will be a better facility for our area," she says.

The March unemployment rate in the Coeur d'Alene area was 10 percent, up from 8.5 percent a year earlier, but down from 10.6 percent in February, she says, adding that March marked the first statewide decline in the jobless rate in 32 months.