Capitol reopens after $118 million renovation

OLYMPIA – After nearly three years, $118 million and the discovery of one “Petrified Orange,” the Washington state Capitol is once again open for business.

Gov. Gary Locke on Thursday night illuminated the massive dome, which had been mostly dark during renovations and repairs after a 2001 earthquake rained plaster and debris down on scared lawmakers. Workers have been moving back into the building for nearly three weeks.

“We are passing on to the next generation a symbol of our hope for a peaceful and prosperous future,” Locke told a shivering crowd of several hundred, before radioing a worker to throw the switch.

It’s a welcome change for lawmakers, who were sandwiched into temporary quarters for the past two legislative sessions. The Senate took over the state library building. The House of Representatives squeezed into a cramped temporary building atop an old parking lot. Both buildings were a far cry from the grandiose marble hallways and echoing rotunda of the Capitol, completed in 1927. The dome – as high as 14 giraffes – is the fourth tallest masonry dome in the world. It’s the backdrop in many Olympia residents’ wedding photos.

“It’s inspiring for people who work here, and for the legislators in their chambers. I really think that’s the reason why our ancestors invested the sort of money they did,” said Secretary of State Sam Reed. “I walk up those steps every day, and there’s just something about it. It’s very elevating.”

Reed’s grandfather, a lawmaker from Wenatchee in 1913, helped design the $7 million Capitol, which drew immediate criticism as overly extravagant. Building the same structure today, state engineers estimate, would cost $1 billion.

The earthquake was the shove that pushed lawmakers out of the building, but state engineers had wanted to renovate it before.

“It was falling apart,” said Patricia McLain, renovation project director. Electrical boxes were warm to the touch. Air ducts were moldy or stuffed with decades worth of after-the-fact wiring and electrical conduit. And the building – which already weighs nearly as much as an aircraft carrier – had gained an estimated 40 percent more weight as water pipes leaked and Olympia’s frequent rains seeped into cracked stone. When workers drilled a finger-sized test hole at the base of some masonry, 600 gallons of old rainwater gushed out.

The move and the renovation were delicate work. The 70 brass spittoons that once graced the building are long gone, but much of the everyday Capitol furniture – leather couches, chairs, coat racks, conference tables – dates to the 1920s. The building is also the repository of many of the official symbols of state. In the hours after the earthquake, state workers and troopers in hard hats crept into the dark, damaged building to extract the old state seal, a one-of-a-kind item without which Locke could not officially declare a natural disaster. A nervous staffer had to haul the 40-pound engraved seal home and lock it in his basement for several days until the state found a secure new office.

“Talk about an impeachable act: losing the state seal,” said the staffer, Patrick McDonald.

For the renovation, some 7,000 items had to be moved out of the building, including a 115-year-old handwritten copy of the state constitution, old flags, and an 1828 portrait of George Washington.

And it wasn’t just the furniture and art that was delicate. The building itself is a historic landmark. In the House and Senate chambers, lawmakers do their arguing, deal-making and voting under intricately sculpted plaster, much of which cracked in the quake. To find workers who could duplicate the 1920s work, McLain said, contractors brought in stonemasons, plaster craftsmen and woodworkers from Holland, South America, the Middle East and Italy.

“It’s not what you and I can do at Home Depot,” said Rob Fukai, a former Spokane resident who heads the state agency overseeing the project. “You can’t just run in there with your drill and hammer and go to town.”

As construction crews clambered through crawlspaces and removed concrete and plaster, they found a lot of surprises. A blanket of asbestos was sandwiched between layers of concrete in the basement, apparently as waterproofing. Workers also found a lot of lead and mercury in the old heating and ventilation machinery. Movers discovered a 1953 time capsule, believed to be full of news articles and letters from Eisenhower-era schoolchildren about their hopes for the future. The state never bothered to bury the capsule, despite repeated pleas from the state historical society. Instead, the capsule – apparently made from Bunker Hill lead – sat in its packing crate in a Capitol storeroom, forgotten. (Still unopened, it’s slated to be buried in the spring.)

Crews also discovered old bottles, coins, campaign literature and a lobbyist’s credential left behind over the decades. A plaster worker in the 1960s, apparently fishing around for some filler, stuffed letters addressed to the lieutenant governor into a hole in the wall.

One of the strangest finds, however, was a 41-year-old orange, uneaten and mummified by time. The shrunken, rock-hard orange was found above a ceiling next to a Coca-Cola cup (which is how the orange’s age was determined). The decades have promoted the orange from a humble snack to a prized artifact, and it spent much of this year enshrined in a display at the nearby General Administration building. Like the rest of the finds – a gold ring, a sheep bone, tobacco tin, a watchman’s badge and nightstick – it will eventually be carted off to the state archives.

During the renovation, workers installed 140 tons of ductwork, more than 27 miles of pipes and 1,150 miles of wiring. They put up wireless antennas and stuck solar cells on the roof.

They also added something the Capitol has never had before: X-ray machines and metal detectors. Visitors must now pass through airport-style security. Not everyone’s happy that “the People’s House” – long open to anyone who cared to wander in and gawk at the machinations of government – is now guarded by $1.2 million worth of search machines, discreetly mounted cameras and 39 newly-hired security staff.

“I don’t want to have anything here that’s going to have a chilling effect on the public having access to this building,” said Reed. “This is the people’s building. I really think it’s a shame that we don’t have this building wide open.”

Who will pay for the project? The feds, in part. The state’s trying to get the federal government to contribute $16 million of the earthquake-related costs.

Most of the $118 million cost, however, will be paid not by taxpayers, but by trees. Nearly three-quarters of the cost will come from timber revenues on state forests.

Some of the work will continue over the next year, including minor electrical work, painting and fine-tuning the new heating and ventilation system. But some of the 90,000 visitors a year are already starting to return. On Thursday, tourists gawked up at the inside of the dome, and teachers led a troop of schoolchildren through the metal detectors.

“During the earthquake, we got calls from Republic, Washington, asking us if the dome was OK,” said McLain. “It’s a symbol of our government. It matters to people.”