Elgin Tower Building elevators safe to ride

The manual elevators inside the historic Elgin Tower Building have passed inspection and will continue to operate as scheduled, a city official confirmed Tuesday.

Both elevators, original to the 1928 art deco building, were inspected Tuesday morning. Besides passing the test, all of the outstanding issues noted in the last inspection had been resolved, Elgin Community Development Director Marc Mylott said. Details of those issues were not immediately available.

“We’re just glad that everything went well,” Mylott said. “We were hopeful that this would be the result.”

The elevators inside the tallest building in Elgin had been overdue for their annual inspection.

One of them should have been examined in June 2012, while the other was supposed to have been looked at in February 2011, Mylott said.

The elevators are also due for a more expensive five-year inspection in May. To save money, the William R. Steckling Charitable Foundation, which maintains the building, wanted to to get them done simultaneously. Monday, Mylott gave the foundation until 4 p.m. the same day to hold the annual inspection. He later lifted the deadline after the foundation secured the inspection for 8 a.m. Tuesday.

If the elevators had flunked the inspection, tenants on all but the ground floors would have had a week to make other work arrangements.

Neal Pitcher, who serves on the foundation’s board of directors, said the positive result was never in doubt.

“Oh, I knew they’d pass,” he said.