A contractor works on the 400-foot-tall bell towers at St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette. (Antonio Anderson/Mining Journal photo)

MARQUETTE – Marquette’s iconic St. Peter Cathedral is undergoing a project to repair, refurbish and waterproof the 400-foot bell towers.

The project will cost an estimated $2.5 million, with the possibility it will exceed that amount. It was prompted by safety concerns after pieces of the tower began to fall off.

“It’s a restoration and waterproofing project on the bell towers,” said the Rev. Brandon Oman, pastor of St. Peter Cathedral. “There are some safety elements in that as well. That section of the bell towers have been there for 88 years and some maintenance has been done but now some of the mortar has eroded … We just need to seal it back up.”

The Upper Peninsula’s freeze and thaw cycles have drastically affected the historical building, Oman explained, with it getting so bad that rock chunks have fallen a few hundred feet from the bell tower to the ground. The area below the tower has been fenced off to protect the public, but that really pushed the need to get the project going, he said. It is expected to be finished in November 2026.

“There is going to be a lot of discovery on this,” said Timothy Presley, the construction project coordinator. “We structured it so that the things that we know are going to be $2.5 million, but the things we don’t know are kind of costs out in the ether.”

RAM Construction Services is the main contractor for the project, and they were chosen due to the specialization in older buildings in the Marquette area, such as projects for the Peter White Public Library and others.

“Their expertise is restoration,” Oman said. “We did bid it out locally and the local contractors said basically that it was beyond their capabilities, but the general contractor RAM will be using local labor as well. So it is good to know that some of the money being spent on this is going into the towers but also helping local labor to help people.”

The money being raised for this project comes directly from donations to the church, which has raised a large amount but still has a lot to go. Which is a big benefit for how long the project will take, Presley said.

“It is all local donations,” Oman said, “It is pretty incredible. People gave from large donations to whatever they could give, like $50. They just love this place and want to see it thrive for another hundred and some years.”

The project comes just a handful of years before the 150th anniversary of the building of the cathedral, which just happens to coincide together. The project is set to finish five years before that date but with the unknown amount of repairs, it is hard to guess if it will or won’t be extended.

“The capital campaign is an ongoing thing,” Presley said. “It’s not like we have got the pot of gold here. We still need to raise money for this effort because as soon as this main project is done there are other parts of the church that need attention and we are focusing on the towers in part because the scaffolding is so expensive, so we are focusing on those upper reaches first.”

Those interested in donating to the capital campaign to raise money for the St. Peter Cathedral can email the church at secretary@stpetercathedral.org.