Developer Mike Wampold will turn the State Office Building in downtown Baton Rouge, La., into a 148-room Marriott Autograph hotel.
The hotel, set to open in August 2016, will be named Watermark Baton Rouge. It will be a full-service hotel, which will include an upscale restaurant and about 2,500 square feet of meeting space.
Renovations to the building have started. The work is expected to cost about $25 million.
The building was constructed in 1926 and was the first skyscraper in Baton Rouge. The state acquired the property in the 1960s. It had housed state higher education offices and the Louisiana Board of Regents.
