The golden dome on the Capitol, one of the more visible icons of Colorado, is now also becoming a symbol of the state’s budget woes.
The 19th-century structure, built almost entirely of cast iron, is rusting and badly in need of major repairs that could cost $10 million to $30 million, and maybe much more, depending on what workers discover after stripping off lead paint and examining the iron more closely.
And there appears little chance the state can come up with that kind of money any time in the near future.
The dome’s problems aren’t evident to visitors who admire the gleaming structure from the parking lot or gaze upward from inside the building at the interior dome.
“People don’t understand. When they look at the building, they think, ‘Surely the Capitol is in good shape,’ ” said Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, a member of the Joint Budget Committee who cites the dome as an example of the state’s unmet maintenance needs when he speaks to community groups.
He said the reaction is always the same.
“People can’t believe the dome is in such bad shape,” Marostica said. “They say, ‘You mean we can’t find enough money to fix our own Capitol dome?’ ”
Though state officials are careful to say that visitors to the Capitol are in no immediate danger from the deteriorating dome, they also point out that in 2007, workers had to put up netting around the base of the dome after a chunk of cast iron more than a foot long and weighing about 10 pounds fell off.
“I don’t want to say that the sky is falling,” said Lance Shepherd, manager of design and construction for the Office of the State Architect, “but a piece of the dome did fall.”
Visitors are not permitted to go outside on a walkway around the Capitol dome, an area where part of the fallen cast iron was discovered.
Most of the rust and weather damage is on the drum of the dome, not the actual rounded copper roof that is covered with gold leaf.
Weather has taken its toll on the drum’s iron columns, railings and facades. Rusted screw heads are starting to push themselves out and break off, cracks are evident in some columns with rust-colored water stains, and some sections of the structure are starting to move, if ever so slightly.
“It’s the nature of cast iron,” Shepherd explained. “Once it starts to rust, it keeps eating away.”
In past years, maintenance workers have used auto-body-repair putty to patch rusty and cracked areas.
Depending on how bad the rust is, the state would either need to cut out rusted sections and find skilled welders to mend the holes in the cast iron or have to recast whole sections of cast iron that can’t be repaired. Neither approach is cheap, Shepherd said.
Meanwhile, the wood around windows in the dome is also rotting from years of weather, allowing rain to seep in. On one recent stormy day this month, Sen. Paula Sando val, D-Denver, spotted water dripping inside the Rotunda.
State workers now check on the dome’s condition at least once a month, and the state pays a private architectural firm $17,000 a year to do quarterly assessments of the structure.
“In the last few months, the degradation of the dome is continuing very rapidly,” read an April report from the firm. “. . . It is our recommendation that immediate action be taken to remedy the dire conditions of the dome.”
Funding bids rejected
State architects have requested funding the last three years to set up scaffolding around the dome and begin repairs.
This year, the State Historical Fund, funded by casino revenues, approved a $3 million grant for dome repairs on the condition that the state come up with a matching $8 million.
Faced with a $1.4 billion budget deficit over two years, lawmakers didn’t approve the request. Meanwhile, the historical fund rescinded the $3 million grant after the deadline for matching funds passed and then parceled the money out to other preservation projects.
Marostica and Rep. Jim Riesberg, D-Greeley, the chairman of the joint Capital Development Committee, say looking for private funds might be the solution.
“I think it would be exciting to have a statewide fund drive to fix the dome,” Riesberg said.
Marostica said corporate heavy hitters would have to be involved.
He knows some Coloradans might not like a corporate sponsor for their Capitol, but the state’s options are limited.
“Will people vote for a tax to redo the Capitol building? I don’t think so,” he said.
House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, though, said it has been difficult to get private donors interested in the Capitol so far.
“People, quite frankly, think that’s a function of government,” he said, “and government should take care of it rather than seeking private help.”
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
