MOUNT VERNON — After a month of delay, the Memorial Theater’s cupola is finally in place. The weather, parts and material, as well as permits, had an effect on the completion of the project. Despite the cold and dreary day on Friday, workers from Midstate Contractors Inc. worked to accomplish the project.
“It’s 90 percent complete,” said John Alberts, project manager for Knox County. “We have to place the urns [on the four corners] and some minor finishing touches.
“They will have to install clips when they put the windows in to hold the windows in place, there will be sealant tape put on the face of the windows, and eventually, probably not today, in better weather there will be some caulking that will have to be done on the outside, and some final touch-up,” he continued. “The biggest thing we have to think about now is what we are going to have as a light. It is going to be a lot brighter and shinier with the aluminum, so we have to have a soft light, hopefully a fluorescent, energy efficient fixture to put up there that will give it the finishing touch.
“All around, the whole thing is 100 percent better than what it was for numerous reasons, and just the upgrade in material [makes a tremendous difference from the old cupola],” Alberts added. “We are a month behind schedule, but on big stuff, that is kind of expected.”
Alberts expects that this will be the last major project for the theater, at least for a while.
“There is always ongoing maintenance issues with painting, here and there, but with the theater being re-done, and the cupola and the tower re-done, the majority of the big stuff is done,” he said.
Several problems along the way caused the project to extend past the original due date.
“Scheduling and not being able to find the material to finish it, and there was a little bit of a holdup with the windows, permit issues, weather,” explained Alberts. “And the later it got [in the year], everything compounded together. But of all the components came together and it is finally a finished good job, from everything I see so far.”
“We just want to make sure everything is done right,” said Chris Monson, project architect with MKC Associates Inc. The project was held up a couple of days last week because with the cupola, explained Monson, installers have to make sure the wind is right. The cold and the snow is not necessarily a problem, he said, but the wind can be.
The two main pieces, the tower and dome, of the cupola were prefabricated at Midstate Marion facility and, once completed, were shipped to the Memorial Theater. On the route to Mount Vernon, the crew ran into a problem getting the cupola past street lights in Mount Gilead, so the project was delayed again in order to obtain new permits to go another route.
“Because of the size of the load we had to obtain some special permits,” Monson said.
The tower was the first to arrive on Wednesday, and by Friday all three portions of the cupola were delivered. Each piece was craned to the top of the building and placed together. When it came time for the finial portion, the weather vane, Bart Hooper, project contractor for Midstate Contractors Inc., was hoisted by the crane, and, holding each separate piece, singly put them into place.
“It actually turned out better than we thought it would, trying to re-create something that is 80 years old out of new materials,” said Monson. “I would venture to say if you were to take a picture of the old cupola and take a picture of this cupola, put them side by side, it would be hard to tell the difference. The only difference is this [new] cupola will never rot.”
The cost of the cupola was $163,251, which also includes the repairs made to the front gable.
