Everyone who was anyone used to hang out at the state Capitol.

And that was good enough.

The governor and the lieutenant governor had the top floor, with the Legislature’s 76 souls needing just two floors of their own.

And there was a lot more government muscle lodged on the Capitol’s fourth floor. The attorney general had a desk over in the Diamond Head mauka corner, and the director of budget and finance was counting the cash on the makai side.

But just like old King Canute was unable to order the waves from rolling over his royal garments, no governor in Hawaii has succeeded in rolling back the growth of state government.

The AG soon needed a separate building.

Budget and Finance took up residence throughout downtown Honolulu.

What the state government can do best is grow.

The state bought the Hemmeter Center and built the State Office Tower back in 2001 and then marched through the old federal courthouse back in 2003, bought it for $32 million and renamed it the King Kalakaua Building.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands abandoned downtown and built itself a new building in Kapolei.

And still government grows.

Those bumper crops of bureaucrats now need a new building, and the Legislature and the governor appear ready to help.

Using the reasoning that it is cheaper to buy an existing building instead of constructing a new one, Gov. David Ige and legislative leaders are eying the 25-story Alii Place, with an estimated $90 million price tag.

"We have been asking the question about why don’t we have or construct another state office building," Ige said at a news conference this week.

Ige reported that legislators pitched the Alii Place purchase to him and said it was interesting.

"I obviously said yes, if it pencils out and it makes sense. We definitely have a need for office space. Acquiring a building such as Alii Place would give us access to office space in a much more accelerated timetable than if we constructed a new one," Ige said.

Alii Place is much classier than most government offices, but state workers have learned how to adapt when presented with uptown digs.

For instance, the old Armed Forces YMCA was turned into a state-of-the-art office building by resort developer Chris Hemmeter and used as his base of operations before he sold it to the state.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano had hoped to turn most of the building into a center for arts in Hawaii with an actual art museum as the focus.

That didn’t happen as state workers burrowed into much of the building, although the Hawaii State Art Museum is on the second floor.

Stephany Sofos, a real estate consultant, said the state would be smart to pick up the building, even at $90 million.

"It is always better to buy than rent or lease," Sofos said.

Also, one reason that about a third of the building is vacant now is because it has been divvied up into small spaces for attorneys, which she said would be perfect for government workers.

"The location is perfect; it would be an excellent purchase," Sofos said.

It is state government’s one great skill: getting bigger.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.