Original Commentary

So yes, to answer the question, the basement is about the size of a large closet. The elevator doesn't actually run down there - that button is disabled, same as the 'close door' button. When the elevator was ordered and installed, they expected the basement to be used - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Why an unusable basement?

Because sometimes things get a little strange and different here. And because I wanted to show that there was extensive scope creep when the building was built, and a couple bad ideas - Terrence