BATON ROUGE - Officials expected the downtown library to be completed by Tuesday, Dec. 24, and though construction is in its final stages, the work will not meet its Christmas Eve deadline.

At the moment, officials with the mayor's office say the building is "looking very good" and nearing the next stage of the process. 

This stage involves the creation of a 'punch list,' a document prepared near the end of a construction project that lists any work not conforming to contract specifications that the general contractor is required to complete prior to final payment. 

After the library creates this punch list, they'll take over in preparing the building for its grand opening by furnishing it and moving books in.

The cost to complete the library is an estimated $2,746,243, which is nearly $1 million more than what repairs were initially expected to cost.

In February, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said the expense was necessary to keep the structure from going to waste.