Ripping out the front (common) staircase

Our contractor's crew just ripped out the front staircase in the common entryway of the red brick building.  All that's left are some old stringers.  Here's a shot from the top of the staircase down:

From underneath the staircase (the basement, inside Unit 1's walk-in closet) up:

 From the bottom of the staircase (the sidewalk) up:

The plan is to rebuild the staircase, adjusting the height of each riser to make it about 1/2 an inch taller, to accommodate the way the level of the first floor rose a few inches when we rebuilt all the floor joists.  (If we didn't increase the riser height now, the last step would be a couple of inches taller than any of the other steps, which is both uncomfortable to use and doesn't meet the building code's requirements.)

The treads are going to be made of oak, which we'll paint a very dark blue to match the navy blue silk wall covering.  (The rest of the floor in the common entryway is going to be painted the same color.)  The risers, you may recall, are going to be made of back-lit off-white onyx.  The carpenters are in the midst of figuring out how to make it all work, with input from an LED lighting specialist.