 Todd DormanTodd Dorman is a columnist for The Gazette. His blog has been bringing smiles to readers' faces since November 2007. |
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New CR welcome sign – Open thread and poll
(SAA Design Group)
So the City Council has approved the city’s new I-380 welcome sign. Rick Smith has details:
On Tuesday, the City Council shifted gears and unanimously approved spending $150,000 to construct a new welcome sign, the idea for which has been nearly a year in the making.
The sign’s final design was created by SAA Design Group, Madison, Wis., in a process overseen by a special City Hall-appointed Gateways Task Force that featured input from the public and a design concept competition held for horticulture students at Kirkwood Community College.
The public asked the task force to make sure the new gateway sign conveys a friendly, progressive message to visitors; uses stone as a major material; is well lit; is modern; and easily read from the highway, Thomas Smith, a planner in the city’s Community Development Department, told the City Council on Tuesday.
It doesn’t exactly blow my hair back, but I’m not sure any welcome sign would. I like the bridge component. But will it distract drivers to their doom?
I wrote about the original welcome sign citizen survey here.
They did not go with my “Cedar Rapids – Iowa’s Friendliest City Come Smell or High Water.” Disappointing.
What do you think. Comment. Vote.
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Shouldn’t a welcome sign say, “Welcome”?
welcome sign is nice and beautiful but “drive on our roads at your own risk” should also be added to the sign.
No houses and just a few buildings. Lots of open spaces. Must be a picture of the Westside of Cedar Rapids!
Wisconsin. Sigh.
I’ve always liked the following line, “Cedar Rapids, where the NE is in the NW, the NW is in the SW and the SW is in the SE”.
One positive point is that the “Giant Toilet Brush” in not on the sign.
But the state’s ugliest skyline is in it..
It does not say progressive, it say meh, I’m boring…
It’s always hard to gauge how it will really look in place when viewing a hand-drawn cartoon image. They should have included another angle showing how it will look with the interstate and surroundings in view. The landscaping will be ok, but it kinda looks like an unfinished or broken bridge project, and a cardboard poster of what I *think* is supposed to be Alliant tower, or maybe the Cedar River tower depending on the angle. People that don’t know CR will think it’s maybe one of the Trade Towers or something. I know it’s meant to be impressionistic or something, but somehow this image doesn’t “flow” together very well. I assume the finished project will look better? I like the Cedar Rapids sign and the three trees.
At least it doesn’t have the tree of 5 seasons on it. Whew!
I don’t mind the flow of most of it — but the one rectangle with the brown buildings looks plunked there with no real flow or relation to the rest. Maybe some brown houses on the left would tie it together.????
Looks like the 1st post about 4 hours ago didn’t make it?
As I said before, the good thing is that the “giant toilet brush” ins’t in there. But our unattractive skyline is..What this sign says is; I’m boring…
Weeds, left over building blocks, a partial fence (or is that what is left of a post flood bridge) with a sign atop it saying something we already knew from the smell seeping into the car’s interior. And finally, someone’s idea of ‘art’ straight from the opening credits of “Frazier” (well that isn’t our skyline shown on that slab).
I voted ‘MEH’ but now that I’ve put my feelings to words, I think I should have voted ‘disapprove’.