University Times

CFO accounting staffers have vacated their 37th floor offices so the four upper-floor elevator car motors can be lowered in pieces through a central hatch.

The central staircase connecting the University Honors College’s space on the 35th and 36th floor has been reinforced and Office of the Chief Financial Officer accounting staff have vacated the 37th floor as modernization of the Cathedral of Learning elevators continues.

The $10.44 million capital project, begun last summer, targets a speedier, more efficient “destination management” system in which passengers will enter their desired floors on a keypad, then will be directed to the elevator they should board. There will be no floor buttons inside the car; the elevator will stop at the preselected floors. (See Aug. 28, 2014, University Times.)

A reinforced platform covers the staircase connecting the University Honors College’s 35th and 36th floors. The elevator motor parts — and their replacements — are being transported by way of the 36th floor; there they are put on the elevator for the trip to the basement.

The heavy lifting has begun as the first of eight elevator motors — one of four housed on the 38th floor and another of four on the 25th floor — are removed to make way for the new.

Two by two, the motors, installed during the Cathedral’s construction in 1931, are being cut into pieces and recycled as scrap. The upper-floor F car and lower-floor J car are scheduled first. They should be operating under the new system in April, said project manager Bill Kane of Facilities Management.

Removing the huge motors is no simple task. The four upper-floor elevator motors must be lowered through ceiling and floor hatches on 37, then onto an elevator on 36 for the trip to the basement.

Dismembered and destined for scrap, the J car motor awaits its fate in the Cathedral of Learning basement.

To prepare, Facilities Management had to shore up the central stairway in the honors college on floors 35 and 36 to handle the weight — for each upper car, that’s about 4,000 pounds for the motor’s central drum alone, said Otis Elevator Co.’s A.J. Ansell. The honors college staircase will remain enclosed by a temporary wall for about 17 months, Kane said.

New motors for the F and J cars will be installed this month, and new openings for additional stops — 20 for the F car and eight for the J car — will begin appearing in March, Kane said. Under the new system, the Cathedral’s eight main elevators will have 74 additional stops, for a total of 201.

The first pair of cars is expected to be operating under the new system in April. Pair by pair, the remaining six cars will be modernized until work is completed in spring 2016.

A three-minute video on the elevator system is posted on the project’s Facebook page (University of Pittsburgh Cathedral Elevator Modernization).

Photos and text by Kimberly K. Barlow

A.J. Ansell of Otis Elevator Co. displays a diamond-studded wire like the one being used to cut the F car motor in the Cathedral of Learning’s 38th floor machine room.

The motor for the J car, the first of four lower-floor elevator cars to be modernized, has been removed from the Cathedral’s 25th-floor machine room.