DID scales back gateway sign plans

The Downtown Improvement District, in the midst of exploring a project to install gateway signs at key intersections, invited three city planning officials to share feedback on the idea at a meeting Tuesday.

That feedback was largely critical. Planning Director Steven Cover, Chief Planner Steve Stancel and Urban Design Studio Director Karin Murphy raised both logistical and conceptual issues with the proposal, which was designed to make downtown more visible and easily identifiable for visitors.

Staff’s concerns convinced the DID it shouldn’t move forward with its original scope for gateway signs. Still, the board voted to continue planning a sign near the intersection of U.S. 41 and Main Street, with most of the group convinced the project would help distinguish and promote the downtown area.

Before Tuesday’s meeting, the DID budgeted $150,000 to install three gateway signs, arching over the intersections and labeling downtown “the heart and soul of the city.” The group originally planned to install the signs at U.S. 41 and Main Street, U.S. 301 and Main Street and Fruitville Road and Lemon Avenue.

Cover, who began working for the city in April, said he didn’t see any need to better label the downtown area.

“I’ve only been here seven weeks, so Sarasota’s very new to me,” Cover said. “But when I come downtown, I know I’m downtown. I don’t need a sign to tell me that I’m here.”

Both Cover and Stancel suggested the signs could come off as an artificial attempt at placemaking. Instead, Stancel said, building types and streetscapes can form a visual language that makes visitors well aware of where a certain neighborhood begins and ends.

Murphy’s concerns were more technical. At each of the identified intersections, she said, it would be difficult to install the signs in a place that created a natural eyeline for visitors and did not interfere with other parts of downtown.

At Main Street and U.S. 41, for example, the sign could not obstruct the view of the traffic lights, and it would have to be placed in a location where the traffic lights didn’t obstruct the view of the sign. The signs would have to contend with trees, landscaping and other Main Street features.

Looking west from Main Street toward U.S. 41, Murphy said there’s already a natural visual stopping point: the bayfront signage near the entrance of Marina Jack. She said a sign a few blocks east could interfere with that view, which lets visitors know the bayfront is a destination, too.

Plus, the city is exploring the possibility of installing a roundabout at U.S. 41 and Main Street, which could throw off the utility of a sign installed now.

“At best, it’s just a little early to be putting structures in those locations,” Murphy said.

DID board member Eileen Hampshire agreed with the planner’s criticisms, arguing downtown is inherently identifiable because of its character and the scale of buildings. But the rest of the board still sees potential in the idea, agreeing on U.S. 41 and Main Street as the best fit.

Cover said the preliminary design concept the DID obtained for the signs did not speak to the distinct character of Sarasota. Board member Daniel Volz ran with that criticism, suggesting a project that better reflected the city’s identity would be more interesting for visitors.

If the signs were built with pedestrians in mind, Volz said it could become a sort of attraction in its own right — a defining place where people took pictures when they came to the city.

DID Operations Manager John Moran is scheduling a discussion with the City Commission regarding the proposal to gauge that board’s interest.

Even as the DID moves ahead with its plans for a gateway sign, staff assured them downtown is already a well-defined neighborhood in many people’s minds.

“Most people I talk to love the people and life that is downtown,” Murphy said. “That’s what brings them here.”