Repairing a lighting-damaged sculpture that is a fixture of the downtown Kansas City skyline will cost more than $1 million, officials say.
The city’s insurance is expected to cover the cost of fixing the futuristic sculpture, The Kansas City Star reports. It’s the biggest four sitting atop the 300-foot tall pylons that suspend the Bartle Hall Convention Center above Interstate 670.
Designed by New York artist R.M. Fischer, their official name is the Sky Station sculptures, although locals call them the “hair curlers.”
City Manager Troy Schulte said workers first noticed the damage last fall while setting up blue lights on them to celebrate the Kansas City Royals’ winning season.
A City Council committee is expected to consider a $1.3 million repair contract with A. Zahner Co., the Kansas City-based fabricator that built the sculptures, which originally cost $1.1 million. Schulte said the repair work will involve removing the sculpture with a helicopter, which is expected to happen May 8. The reinstallation should occur in late summer or early fall.
The damage, which inspectors determined was caused by lightning and water seepage, is the first to the sculptures since they were installed in 1994.
City Architect Eric Bosch said all four sculptures have built-in lightning rods, so they can accept lightning strikes and ground them. But in this case, the lightning split one of the tubes on the sculpture, and the damage is too severe to fix while it’s perched on top of a convention center pylon.
Topics Kansas
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