After 20 years, Minneapolis Convention Center bathrooms are getting a $2.5 million facelift.
The City Council's budget committee signed off Monday on a deal to overhaul 32 restrooms at the city's convention center. The low-bid to Shaw-Lindquist Associates, Inc must still be approved by the full Council.
Convention Center head Jeff Johnson said the bathrooms, which include all facilities except for those in the latest expansion, have largely remained the same since the late 1980s/early 1990s.
"We're basically going through and hop scotching around the venue and redoing the bathrooms to bring them up to today's standards," Johnson said. "This is something that we see on our customer surveys all the time: that the bathrooms need to be updated."
Johnson said the upgrades will include all new tile, flooring, toilets, plumbing, counter tops, sinks, faucets, mirrors and lighting. He expects that in addition to a better "fit and feel," it will also help them reduce water consumption 50 percent by the year 2015.
"They're not moving, but they're going to be basically new bathrooms," Johnson said.
Johnson said they hope to begin as soon as the Council signs off and to complete the project this year, closing eight bathrooms at a time.
