The New Jersey State House is about to get a major facelift.
Gov. Chris Christie announced $300 million in renovations to one of the nation's oldest state capitols, which was built in 1792.
"This building will be completely evacuated right after the budget is done," he said.
Christie said that the building had many structural and superficial deficiencies, including an office that is hazardously sinking into a server room a floor below, window panes that are "literally falling out."
He added that work would begin as soon as the budget was completed in July and it would be about 4 years before staffers, legislators and others who work in the State House would move to another space in Trenton until the work was completed.
"I have been urging this for years," he said of the renovations. "I am not going to leave here without it being done."
It comes less than a month after the state raised the gas tax from 14.5 cents per gallon to 37.5 cents.
Christie also chided reporters at the State House who attended the announcement, saying "I think you thought I was announcing something else." The New Jersey governor is a longtime supporter and onetime surrogate of President-elect Donald Trump and has been rumored to be in consideration for a number of top posts in the billionaire businessman's White House administration.
Christie insisted that he was "completing his term" as governor despite speculation that he could be headed to Washington.
"If I was announcing that I was going to go work in the Trump administration, would I really do that in the rotunda of the State House?" he said.
