Media gets tour of work in progress
BOISE � Thick dust floats in daylight streaming through windows of the state Capitol, where the lawmakers have been replaced by workers bashing concrete.
On Friday, crews from Jacobsen-Hunt, the general contractor overseeing the project, led about a dozen reporters and photographers through the building, which is three months into its $120 million renovation and expansion to be done by 2010.
All the power is out � twisted electricity cables lie in giant piles after being torn from the ceilings and walls � so workers rely on humming diesel generators to run many of their tools. Conveyor belts haul out rubble from the basement.
Tour guide Jerry Upchurch, Jacobsen-Hunt’s general superintendent, kept his charges away from what were once the austere workspaces of Legislative Services auditors.
“We have demolition crews in there, working overhead with hot saws,” he said. “You don’t want to be in there.”
To make sure nothing is lost, crews catalogue everything they remove. On the first floor, workers from Treasure Valley Woodworking in Boise pull doors from frames and record the ornate brass handles, some of which date to the early 1900s. Handles in good condition will be reinstalled.
“We document it, take a picture, then put them in the computer,” said Terry Thayer, a Treasure Valley Woodworking employee.
On the third floor inside House of Representatives administrative offices, where reporters and other members of the public once could retrieve copies of roll-call votes, most of the ceiling lies on the floor.
When the work is complete, these offices will be replaced by a staircase and an elevator to shuttle legislators from the new underground wings to the fourth floor.
Iron supports have been driven into the ground to shore up areas that will be excavated for each of the 25,000-square-foot underground wings, which will be sunk about 17 feet below the surface.
Not everything is going as scheduled. Brigette Teets, a Department of Administration employee, said the state still doesn’t have “construction cams” installed that will allow people to monitor the excavation of the wings over the Internet.
Idaho’s problem: Teets hasn’t yet overcome the hurdle of having no electricity in the building. As a result, it’s likely the cameras will be mounted instead atop the Borah Building, where Gov. Butch Otter has his offices, and the parking garage across the street, to give cyber viewers a glimpse into the emerging pits.
“I was hoping to have them done by today,” Teets said Friday. “But I think it’s going to be early next week.”