The Windows That Can't Be Washed

County can't clean upper windows of $44 million courthouse: Once you get past the dirt and dung spattered against the outside of the windows, the view from high above downtown Madison in the three-year-old Dane County Courthouse is still tremendous. But in the three years and four months the building has been open, the curved windows, which are the architectural centerpiece of the $44 million triangle-shaped building, have not been washed -- at least not the upper three floors.
The county is hoping the third time is the charm and is planning on having the windows cleaned sometime this summer, said Travis Myren, recently appointed head of the county Department of Administration. They have tried before. Window washing firms have managed to wash the fourth and fifth floor windows. But the sixth through eighth floors remain dirty, to say the least.
An inspection of those windows from inside the building shows that at the top of the eighth floor, where the windows meet the roof line, cobwebs predominate, and some still have the remains of various bugs trapped within them. If last year is any indication, as soon as the weather gets hot, spiders will begin constructing webs near the various joints between metal bars that cross the windows and the glass they support.
The windows themselves are coated with a splotches of dirt and streaked with the droppings of birds that live under the canopy of the roof. While those streaks are most plentiful on the eighth floor, they also heavily stain the windows on the seventh and sixth, and some are even visible on the fifth and fourth floors, although not as plentiful as those on the upper, unwashed, windows.
Along with the streaks are blotches of dirt spread across the windows, and the combination often elicits an "ewww" from citizens present for court proceedings.
In each of the past two years, the county has contracted with a local window washing firm to have the windows in the building cleaned, and in those years the windows on the flat sides of the three-sided building have been washed. But no one in those firms has figured out a way to wash the 6th, 7th, and 8th floor windows that face Hamilton Street. Although they have not washed those windows, contractors have been paid the full amount of the contract, $9,380, in each of the last two years.

Dane County Board Supervisor Dennis O'Loughlin could only shake his head at the thought of the dirty windows on the $44 million courthouse building. "I am struck by the fact that such smart people work for Dane County and they have trouble washing windows," he said. "It's crazy." It wasn't supposed to be an issue.
Dane County Judges Michael Nowakowski and Sarah O'Brien, both of whom were instrumental in creating the specifications for the new building, recall that when the issue of washing the concave windows was raised in the planning stages, they were told by architects from the Durrant Group that it would not be a problem. At one point, the plan called for one of the large, floor-to-ceiling windows on the eighth floor to be accessible to the outside, and workers would then use a track attached to the building to move around the windows and down to lower floors.
But Rob Nebel, the county's point man on the building project, said the plan was abandoned for a simple reason: "It wouldn't have worked, that was the problem," he said. "We contacted three or four window washing firms and they said they wouldn't use it." Removing the track saved the county about $39,000 in construction costs, but nothing was put in its place. As the building now stands, the roof covers the concave area housing the windows, and there is no way workers can access the windows from the roof.
Miron builders, the contractor for the building, used a large lift to reach the upper floors to wash the windows in the waning days of construction before the building was opened for use in 2006. Nebel said that system could be used again, but it would force closure on one lane of Hamilton Street, a major downtown link for eastbound traffic. Or there is a possibility, Nebel said, that a company with automated equipment that crawls up the side of the building as it washes the windows could be hired to do the job. On the fourth floor there are two exits to a patio garden, and workers using that garden have been able to clean the fourth and fifth floor curved windows. That area could provide a launching spot for the automated crawler, Nebel said.

Although not as noticeable as the filthy upper floor windows or severe temperature swings in the hallways, the garden is another feature of the courthouse that has not lived up to expectations. A committee headed by soon-to-be-retired Circuit Court Judge Steven Ebert is reconsidering its use.
The garden, initially referred to as the rooftop garden, even though it is on the fourth floor, was designed as an area for courthouse weddings and for people to be able to wait outside for court proceedings. It is seldom used for either, and the "garden" consists of several large planters with flora that generally die quickly. Hoses for watering the various planters are strewn about the patio area, giving rise to the courthouse bailiffs to refer to the area as Dane County's "Hose Garden."
In winter, county personnel have taken to duct-taping around the ill-fitting doors leading to the garden, especially after a bailiff put a thermometer in the hallway-lobby area frequented by the public and attorneys to access courtrooms, and recorded a temperature of 47 degrees. Another bailiff held his Zippo lighter about three feet from the door and discovered that wind whipping between the door and its frame was enough to blow out the lighter's flame.