The Arkansas Legislative Council on Friday voted to authorize the Bureau of Legislative Research to enter into a contract with Kinco for the construction of an underground “secured walkway” between the state Capitol building and the Multi-Agency Complex immediately west of the state Capitol.
In a voice vote with no audible dissenters to authorize the contract, the council granted final approval authority for the proposed contract to its Policy-Making Subcommittee, which is scheduled to meet Tuesday.
Kinco’s estimate for the project is $3.87 million, which is lower than the original estimate and falls within the bureau’s current budget for this project, after a request for proposals for construction of the underground secured walkway, bureau Director Marty Garrity said Thursday.
Legislative Council Co-Chairman Rep. Jeff Wardlaw, R-Hermitage, said the cost of the project will be paid over two fiscal years from money appropriated in 2009.
In a related action, the Legislative Council granted Republican Secretary of State John Thurston’s request for spending authority of up to $4.5 million under Act 796 of 2023 for the costs associated with architectural design, construction and renovations of the state Capitol mechanical room.
Thurston wants to install new air handling system equipment for the north end of the state Capitol in this project. The proposed location for the new air handling system equipment is between the Capitol and Big MAC building.
If the multimillion-dollar projects are done together, there is a potential cost savings of between $500,000 and $1 million on the two projects, according to a spokesperson for Thurston.
Approval of the underground secured walkway and the new air handling system equipment projects was required by the end of September in order to complete both projects by the start of the 2025 regular session, Pitsch has said. Prior to the 2025 regular session, the House also plans to create more than 30 more offices for representatives on the fourth floor of the Big MAC building in space formerly used by the Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism to replace offices for representatives in the basement of the state Capitol that are now used by the state Capitol Police, according to a House official.
In 2009, a proposed $1.8 million, 100-foot pedestrian tunnel that would connect the Capitol and the Multi-Agency Complex was not built after then-Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe expressed his opposition to the project. The total cost of that project, including new entryways, was projected at $2.8 million.
Alexa Henning, spokeswoman for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said Friday in a written statement that the General Assembly “is an independent branch of government, and if legislators feel this is a needed upgrade to our Capitol that uses taxpayer dollars responsibly, then they have the ability to move these improvements forward.”
After the council’s Friday meeting, Wardlaw said “if we are going to dig up” the roadway between the state Capitol and the Multi-Agency Complex “to fix those air conditioners that we found out during session need to be fixed very badly, then you might as well lay the secured walkway in place while that hole was there.
The legislative staff “lugs all that paperwork up that hill, that zig-zag walkway [from the Multi-Agency Complex] to get into the back of the Capitol,” he said. “This gives a streamlined way for our staff to be more efficient and perform their job, and it also lays in a good, secure place for members to go back and forth between the two meeting rooms.”
Wardlaw said there hasn’t been a decision made about whether the general public also would be able to go through through the underground secured walkway or whether the underground secured walkway would be limited only to lawmakers and legislative staff.