The Municipal Employees Retirement System is building a 4,200-square-foot addition to its headquarters at 7937 Office Park Blvd., just off Jefferson Highway. The nearly $1.4 million project will include the construction of a new, larger board room as well as improvements to the system’s existing building and an expansion of its parking lot.
The addition will be developed on vacant land the system has owned for more than 20 years and nearly will double the size of its headquarters, says MERS Executive Director Robert Rust. Construction is scheduled to begin in early February, with the project expected to take about six months to complete.
The MERS board of directors voted to undertake the project last year because it needed a new, larger conference room and had not made any renovations to its existing building in nearly 20 years. Rust says the addition is considered an asset of the system, rather than an expense.
MERS has more than 10,000 active and retired members and assets of more than $657 million. Its unfunded accrued liability—the gap between its assets and the amount of money needed to pay its beneficiaries—exceeds $75 million. —Stephanie Riegel
