Nine years after Kay Ivey took the oath of office in the Old Senate Chamber of the Alabama State Capitol, the state office building at 501 Washington Avenue in Montgomery was designated to official bear her name.

The Alabama Building Renovation Finance Authority voted Thursday to designate the five-story, 115,648-square-foot building the Kay Ivey Office Building, acting on a joint resolution passed by the Alabama Legislature earlier this session.

Governor Ivey signed the resolution, HJR253, earlier this week.

The building, which currently houses the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, was originally constructed in 1937 as the State Highway Building, later served as the Public Safety Building and was renovated and expanded in 2007.

Ivey’s name already appeared on a plaque inside from that renovation, listed as State Treasurer on the Building Commission that oversaw the project.

Now her name is set to be on the outside.

The Kay Ivey Office Building joins a short list of designated buildings in the Capitol complex that includes the Lurleen B. Wallace Office Building (1991), the Governor Gordon Persons Office Building (1989), the James Elisha Folsom Administrative Building (1987) and the Kelly Butler Parking Deck (2023).

The Legislature’s resolution specifically noted that the Ivey building will sit parallel to the Wallace building — a fitting detail, given that it was Lurleen Wallace’s 1966 gubernatorial campaign that first drew a young Auburn student named Kay Ivey into public life.

The resolution, sponsored by State Rep. Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) and more than three dozen co-sponsors catalogues Ivey’s tenure as Alabama’s 54th governor — the longest continuously serving governor in state history and the longest-serving female governor in American history.

Among the accomplishments cited: $69 billion in new capital investment and more than 100,000 new jobs; the Rebuild Alabama infrastructure program, which funded roughly 500 road and bridge projects across all 67 counties; the deployment of over $2.5 billion in broadband expansion; passage of the CHOOSE Act establishing universal school choice; and the construction of new prison facilities in Elmore and Escambia Counties.

On April 10, 2017, then-Lieutenant Governor Ivey assumed the governorship following the resignation of her predecessor, taking the oath at 6:01 p.m. She committed that day to an administration that would be “open, honest and transparent.”

“Our work is not done,” Ivey has said, pledging to continue giving Alabamians her all through the final day of her term.

The resolution closes with the Legislature’s own nod to the governor’s signature phrase: “There truly is no step too high for our most celebrated and most loved high-stepper.”