Illinois Capitol renovations ‘a few months behind,’ set to wrap up this winter

SPRINGFIELD — Nearly five years after construction crews started moving dirt on the $350 million renovation of the Illinois State Capitol’s north wing, there are finally glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel.

The massive project, which included a rehab of the Illinois Senate chamber, construction of a new underground parking garage and conference room and the creation of a new main entrance with enhanced security features, will wrap up “sometime this winter,” Architect of the Capitol Andrea Aggertt told Capitol News Illinois in an interview this week.

“We are slightly behind,” Aggertt said. “As with everything, it’s almost like we’re on an archeological site. You don’t know what you’re going to find until you get into it.”

There’s been progress: The Senate returned to its refurbished digs on schedule in January 2025. And the $46 million, 435-space parking garage for legislators and staff opened this spring — more than two years later than anticipated. Under the updated timetable, the entire project will be complete about two years behind schedule.

Despite overruns on time, Aggertt said the project, funded by the Rebuild Illinois capital construction program, is “within that budget” and they “don’t anticipate going over that.”

‘Surprises’

Labor shortages attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and a scarcity of specific materials necessary to renovate a 150-year-old building contributed to the slowdown, Aggertt said. Not to mention the weather. Multiple heavy rain events this summer set the construction timeline back another several weeks.  And then there were several unanticipated “surprises” that Aggertt and her team were confronted with as construction progressed.

Among them: The discovery of wrought iron trusses that were apparently hidden behind walls for more than a century. Their presence was not even unearthed during the last major renovation of the north wing in the 1970s. But the trusses, it turns out, play a critical role supporting the Capitol’s mansard roof.

So, they had to pivot, working around those structural components and reallocating floor plans while making sure they would be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“There have been things that we did not anticipate,” Aggertt said. “We also had staff and members in offices all the way until the time we started construction. So that means our first chance to look behind walls that nobody had seen for 70 years was at that point, and that also led to surprises that we had to overcome, which I’m proud to say that the group that we have working, the general contractors, the subcontractors, all the union tradesmen and women, have done a great job to complete that.”

Most of the work inside the north wing is now complete, including the removal of mezzanines added in the 1960s and 1970s that subdivided floors with lofty ceilings. This will result in less office space in the Capitol but restore the building’s original look.

Detailing work is done and new carpeting has been installed with furniture to be delivered to the refurbished north wing in the coming months, Aggertt said.

A casualty of this restoration? The Capitol office of former President Barack Obama, who served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Aggertt said it would’ve been “impossible” to maintain that one space while gutting everything else around it.

“But I can say we’ve saved everything from it down to the carpet and the light fixture,” Aggertt said. “So, if we want to build a replica someday, we documented everything.”

What’s left?

The renovations of the third through sixth floors is complete with construction still wrapping up on the first and second floors along with the new underground conference center and welcome center, Aggertt said.

Those passing, driving or walking by will notice that work has finally begun on the removal of the paved north drive. Its tear-up had been pushed to the back of the queue so construction crews could utilize it.

The drive once included parking spots for senators and staff and was a popular pick-up and drop-off location, first with horse-drawn carriages and later cars.

But in an era of heightened security threats, the drive allowed cars too close to the building and it will thus be replaced with a sidewalk that’ll allow pedestrian access to the building from Second and Monroe streets.

Security enhancements were a key consideration in the details of the renovation.

The new north wing entrance, which will serve as the main gateway into the building, will feature an attached welcome center that will allow the Secretary of State’s police to screen visitors before they enter the Capitol itself. There will be two security lines to better accommodate large groups and a dedicated drop-off lane for tour buses on Monroe Street.

The new space will include an information desk, a cafe, public restrooms and a room where visitors can start their tour of the building with an informational video.

“Our plan is that when groups do come into the Capitol building, there would hopefully be a video or two that they can watch… about this construction, maybe the original construction” and “some of the more notable officials that have served in the Illinois State Capitol building,” Aggert said. “So I think that’s a really cool way to also educate people about the history and something that we’ve never been able to offer before.”

Like any building, the Capitol requires regular upkeep and maintenance, Aggertt said. Before this, the Capitol’s west wing underwent a $50 million renovation between 2011 and 2013.

Aggertt said there’s no funding allocated yet for future work, but she said the building’s east wing will need a refurbishment like the north wing within the next decade. They’ll soon need to replace the roof of the Capitol dome, which hasn’t had any major work done on it since the 1970s.

If there’s anything she wants people to take away from the renovation, Aggertt said it’s the “beauty of the original architecture.”

“So, unfortunately, over the last several decades, mezzanines were added,” and “walls were painted white,” Aggertt said. “So we had the cool opportunity to take a deeper look at all those layers of paint and determine what was originally there. So everyone’s going to be able to see that now.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.