Capitol coming to life

Coo. Coo. Coo.

Such a soothing sound isn't usually heard in the historic chambers of the Utah Senate. But a family of pigeons has taken advantage of the massive renovation of the Capitol Building to make a nest just below the room's newly revealed skylight.

The birds were spotted by members of the Capitol Preservation Board during a nearly two-hour tour of the building Thursday to assess the progress of the $200 million, four-year project that includes a seismic retrofit as well as major remodeling.

The pigeons will have to find a new home by late next year, when work is scheduled to be completed and the Legislature, which has been meeting in temporary quarters in an adjacent office building, returns along with the governor and other state officials.

"It feels like we're restoring the state in a way," said Rep. Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, who has served on the board since it was created in 1999 to oversee the overhaul of the Capitol Complex.

Although most of the areas toured by the board were hardly recognizable as future office and meeting spaces, Becker said he could see the building "come back to life," even as he stepped over construction materials.

The most important element of the renovation, the installation of nearly 300 base isolators beneath the building to protect it in an earthquake by allowing it to shake without shattering, won't ever be seen by the public.

But board members ducked under the 130-million pound granite building to look at the complex system, including the four huge piers holding up the rotunda that are being set on a series of base isolators, which operate as a sort of shock-absorber in a quake.

Board member Wilson Martin of the Division of State History, who had worked on a similar seismic retrofit of the City-County Building, marveled at what was going on beneath the Capitol. "This is much more complicated," Martin said.

Some technology employed in the restoration was much simpler to understand. The brightened exterior of the stately building, for example, is the result of some old-fashioned scrubbing.

"It's just soap and water basically. It's a power washing, just like what you do to your car," the board's executive director, David Hart, explained.

Hart pointed out how the dirt floors and ripped-out walls will be transformed into everything from committee rooms to a secret place in the basement for the state's chief executive to go should protestors block access to the governor's office.