One of KC’s iconic ‘hair curlers’ on Bartle Hall damaged in lightning strike

They are among the most distinctive features of Kansas City’s downtown skyline — the four Sky Station sculptures atop Bartle Hall.

What you and probably everybody else around town calls “the hair curlers.”

Now one of them — the biggest and most dramatic-looking of the four — apparently has been hit by lightning and needs fixing.

It’ll cost more than $1 million, but taxpayers won’t be on the hook: The city’s property insurance will cover it.

According to City Manager Troy Schulte, workers first noticed the damage last fall when they were setting up blue lights on the sculptures to celebrate the Kansas City Royals’ winning season.

Inspectors determined a lightning strike had cracked the easternmost sculpture. Water had also seeped in, another problem.

So, Schulte said, the city will have to get a helicopter to remove the sculpture, have it repaired at a fabrication shop, and then helicopter it back up.

The City Council’s finance committee on Wednesday is expected to consider a $1.3 million contract with A. Zahner Co., the world-class Kansas City-based fabricator that built the sculptures, to do the repair work.

This is the first damage to the Sky Stations since they were installed in 1994. In fact, said City Architect Eric Bosch, all four sculptures have built-in lightning rods, so they can accept lightning strikes and ground them.

But in this case, the lightning split one of the tubes on the sculpture, and the damage is too severe to fix while it’s perched on top of a convention center pylon.

The repair cost, incidentally, is likely to be more than the original $1.1 million cost of the fanciful metal sculptures that were approved under Kansas City’s public art program.

Bosch also pointed out that the value of the artwork has grown significantly, although he didn’t have an exact dollar figure.

The sculptures were designed by New York artist R.M. Fischer. Initially controversial — some people thought they were exorbitantly expensive, spiky metal oddities — they’ve since become an integral part of the city’s calendar art.

Bosch said the other three Sky Station sculptures are in fine shape, and in general the whole creation has stood up remarkably well to nature’s onslaughts over the past 22 years.

Bosch said it makes perfect sense to have Zahner do the repair work, and the city will even use the same helicopter company that first installed the pieces.

The Missouri Department of Transportation and surrounding neighborhoods have approved the removal schedule. Tentatively, the helicopter is supposed to perform the work early on the morning of Sunday, May 8, although that depends on the weather and the wind.

The removal is not expected to take very long. Bosch recalled that in 1994, city officials thought it would take all morning to install the sculptures, but it ended up only taking 45 minutes.

The sculpture will then be trucked to Zahner’s fabrication shop near Ninth Street and the Paseo. The reinstallation should occur in late summer or early fall.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 5:39 PM with the headline "One of KC’s iconic ‘hair curlers’ on Bartle Hall damaged in lightning strike."