As one lengthy renovation on the Capitol campus comes to an end, another one is about to begin — and lawmakers are hoping it won’t come with the same blown deadlines and cost overruns.
Members pressed Architect of the Capitol Thomas Austin on how to use lessons from the Cannon House Office Building renewal project to inform future renovations to the Rayburn Building at a House Administration Committee hearing Wednesday.
The hearing comes amid ongoing warnings from Austin about the aging infrastructure of the Capitol complex and the risk of “catastrophic system failure.” He stressed the need to act sooner rather than later to address Rayburn’s issues — warning that the costs will only pile up the longer they wait.
Over the last 12 months alone, 16 major leaks affected six member suites, four committee office spaces, five member storage areas and two hallways, Austin said. These required “millions of dollars” of remediation and repairs.
“As these facilities age and kind of reach this tipping point, we start having an increasing number of failures,” Austin said.
