The price tag for a project to replace the carpets in offices and meeting rooms on four floors of the state Capitol is approaching $2 million, with crews working seven days a week to get the first phase of the job finished in time for the Jan. 15 opening of the state Legislature, according to state Comptroller Curt Otaguro.

Otaguro said the Department of Accounting and General Services has budgeted $2.5 million to re-carpet 284 rooms including 15 conference rooms in the basement, second, third and fourth floors of the landmark building, but that still won’t cover all of the Capitol.

The state will have to enter into a new contract later to re-carpet the House and Senate chambers where lawmakers gather for floor votes during each session, he said.

The Legislature meets at the state Capitol from mid-January to early May each year.

“It’s something that DAGS has been advocating to continue to put in some money to maintain that Capitol building,” Otaguro said. “It’s the crown jewel of the state.”

The Capitol first opened in 1969, and the last time its carpets were replaced was in 1994 during a $67 million asbestos removal and renovation project that closed the building for four years. The Capitol reopened in 1995 after that project was completed.

The “immediate priority” for this project is to re-carpet the offices of all 76 lawmakers, staff offices and the Capitol’s public meeting rooms. Otaguro said the plan is to complete that work by Christmas and then re-carpet additional areas in Phase 2 of the project after the 2020 legislative session.

DAGS has a $1.141 million contract with Close Construction Inc. to tear out the old floor covering and install the new carpet under the first two phases of the project, and also replace rubber baseboards in the conference rooms with wood.

The state spent $640,000 buying carpet to fit with the blue ocean theme in the Senate chamber and offices, and the orange-and-brown color scheme in the House.

DAGS also hired consultants Bowers + Kubota for $163,000 to handle design work and project management for the job, including working with top lawmakers over about two months on the style and colors, he said.

The state plans to buy more carpet for the second phase of the project. The Capitol is more than 188,000 square feet, and Otaguro said the project will re-carpet about 60% of that floor space, Otaguro said.

The job required that lawmakers box up their office materials, disassemble furniture and move it all out into the hallways, where it was watched over by state sheriff’s deputies, he said. Work began in the Senate offices on the second floor, followed by work on the House offices.

Gov. David Ige, who has offices on the fifth floor of the Capitol, agreed the House and Senate areas should be re-carpeted first, since those areas of the building experience the most foot traffic, Otaguro said.

Otaguro praised the efforts of DAGS, lawmakers’ staffs, the contractor and the consultant on a project that had such a tight timeline that DAGS authorized work to begin before the contract with Close was even finalized. “It was a short fuse, but it just proves that if we all work as a team, we can get things done,” he said.

DAGS will need to seek additional funding from lawmakers, award a separate contract and buy more materials to re-carpet the House and Senate chambers, Otaguro said.