State officials on Thursday opened the new Mississippi Trade Mart that's attached to the coliseum on the state fairgrounds in Jackson. Photo courtesy Commissioner Andy Gipson

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — State and local officials on Thursday opened the new Mississippi Trade Mart that's attached to the coliseum on the state fairgrounds in Jackson. The State-funded building cost $30 million. It is near the old Trade Mart that was built in 1975. The old one will be torn down to make way for parking spaces.

The Trade Mart hosts a variety of meetings and exhibitions for about 200,000 people a year.

The new building has 110,000 square feet (10,219 square meters) of space. That's nearly twice as large as the old one.