The first three of 105 new directional and informational signs
have received funding and should be posted in downtown Gilroy by
the end of next month.
The first three of 105 new directional and informational signs have received funding and should be posted in downtown Gilroy by the end of next month.
The Gilroy Downtown Business Association agreed Dec. 1 to pay $23,900 to create and install the three signs in downtown Gilroy. Two iron, arching gateways – created by Milipitas-based Marketshare and designed by Gilroy-based Articulate Solutions – will be placed near Monterey and Fourth streets as well as near Monterey and 10th streets. A kiosk, which will contain a directory of downtown businesses, will be installed at Monterey and Fifth streets.
“We’ve got three down, and 102 to go,” Gilroy Visitors Bureau executive director Jane Howard said Wednesday.
The signs are the first portion of a $500,000 “wayfinding” project, which eventually will include signs pointing to auto dealers, golf courses, wineries, and local parks as well as other historic structures and local amenities.
The downtown signs will be paid for in part with a $5,000 grant from PG&E along with designated funds provided by local developer and Downtown Business Association board member James Suner’s family, which has contributed toward downtown projects.
“The metal work is beautiful on them,” Suner said of the signs.
Several years ago, Suner envisioned a giant arch downtown, but he has since opted to help fund smaller projects such as the wayfinding signs and three historic sculptures that were installed downtown in October.
The sides of the blue downtown signs, designed by Articulate Solutions owner Katherine Filice, are lined with intertwining box elder tree leaves, and its upper corners are adorned with garlic bulbs. The sign contains the city logo, with the word “Gilroy” in lower-case letters – as it is on the city’s Web site – and the bottom portion of the “G” is shaped like a garlic bulb. The arch contains the words “Downtown Historic District” displayed in block capital letters.
“We wanted something that was indigenous to the area but was also visually pleasing,” Filice said of using the box elder leaves.
Gilroy’s City Council gave the Visitors Bureau $73,000 in February 2008 to hire Articulate Solutions to spend five months polling the community and to create a new city logo and Gilroy’s official slogan: “Gilroy, a community with a spice for life.”
Most of the maps and signs planned for the wayfinding system will cost about $5,500 each. City Council members have praised the signs’ aesthetics but have said within the past year that the city cannot spend money on them now because of budget constraints.
Filice said she hopes that the signs provide residents with something they can be proud of while welcoming visitors and guiding them through town. She hopes the first few signs will create an incentive for installing more of them.
“I’m hoping that once signs are up, people will have a really great sense of what they could be,” Filice said.
Marketshare will likely install the first three signs before the end of March.
Eric Howard, Gilroy Downtown Business Association president and nephew of Jane Howard, said he loves the signs’ design.
“I think it’s classy,” he said.
