SLAM steel work getting underway

SLAM March 2015
Structural steel for the roof of the new State Library Archives and Museum have been lifted into place. (Photo by Skip Gray/KTOO)

The new State Library Archives and Museum is beginning to resemble the distinctive silhouette that was featured in early design drawings and concept renderings.

Concrete work is wrapping up at the downtown construction site, while the first pieces of structural steel for the roof were lifted into place this week.

Before that roof is closed up, a favorite exhibit from the old Alaska State Museum will make an early return to the site.

“The Eagle Tree has landed,” says Bob Banghart, Deputy Director of the Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums.

Banghart says the tree trunk just arrived from the manufacturer in Minnesota, and must be installed within the next week because it is so big.

“We’ll be picking it up with the crane and lowering the trunk into position,” Banghart says. “It’ll be mounted and then it’ll be wrapped. Final installation of the branches and final painting will occur after the building is closed in and heated.”

Interior work and landscaping at the SLAM site will get underway this spring and summer.

Other large or heavy SLAM exhibits to be installed this year include a section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a Russian cannon, an Alaska-Gastineau Mine locomotive, and the green sculpture Nimbus after it has been repaired and restored.

The $139 million building is on track to be finished by April 2016.

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