![]() Three floors in the modernistic Colorado Supreme Court building in Denver are scheduled to be repaired and upgraded in the wake of a surreal attack on the structure two weeks ago. On January 2, a man named Brandon Olsen gained entrance to the building by shooting out a window. Once inside, he held a security guard at gun point before setting fire in a part of the stairwell and on the seventh floor of the structure. That fire, in turn, set off the building’s sprinkler system, which, according to reports, ran for several hours. Although Olsen eventually left the building and peacefully surrendered to police officers, the damage done to the structure has proven more long lasting, with water from the sprinkler system seeping to other levels over a two-hour period. “The seventh floor, the sixth floor, and the fifth floor will have to be substantially rebuilt from scratch,” Steve Vasconcellos, State Court Administer, remarked during a meeting of the Colorado's Joint Judiciary Committee last week. Repair work on the structure is also expected to include substantial industrial hygienic cleaning. Altogether, the repair work may cost as much as $35 million. According to a press release issued by the State of Colorado, three floors in the building will have to be “substantially rebuilt from scratch.” The impacted floors are now in the process of being dried out. The higher court building, at 2 E 14th Avenue in downtown Denver, is officially a part of the Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center and was designed by the Denver-based Fentress Architects. The structure was opened in 2013. Besides the Supreme Court courtroom and chambers, the building also houses the courtrooms for the state’s Court of Appeals. A motive in the attack has not been reported, although according to the Denver Post Olsen was said to have told officers that that he was “hallucinating during the incident after smoking methamphetamine and taking fentanyl pills.” By Garry Boulard
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