North Dakota’s most costly leased building largely unused

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $3 million in rent over the next two years in unused office space for a state agency that intends to allow most of its more than 400 employees to continue to work from home indefinitely. Officials say the North Dakota Information Technology Department’s 85,000-square-foot leased space in a newly remodeled privately owned office building in north Bismarck is unoccupied, except for about a dozen employees. The agency says it has favored “teleworking” even before the coronavirus pandemic hit and will continue to do so.