City purchases light-pole banners; allots $40,000 to study signage for visitors

Armed with a federal grant, Cape Girardeau will embark on a program to create downtown banners touting the city and a coordinated program to create signs directing visitors to tourist destinations and community facilities.

The Cape Girardeau City Council approved two contracts Monday evening using Preserve America grant funding from the National Park Service Historic Preservation program. One grant will pay Display Sales Co. of Bloomington, Minn., $6,620 for 99 banner signs that will be placed on light poles. The signs will be installed in riverfront areas and along Broadway, said Sarah Wallace, community planner for the city.

A design committee organized by Old Town Cape is working on the final designs for the banners, Wallace said.

The $40,000 allocated for the wayfinding sign program, money that will also come from the same Preserve America grant, will pay for a study of what to highlight on the signs as well as the sign designs, Wallace said. The council awarded the contract to Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, an Atlanta consulting firm.

The city will seek another grant to pay for installation of the wayfinding signs, she said.

The need for better signs to help visitors find their destinations was one suggestion included in the DREAM Initiative final report for helping revitalize downtown. The city was awarded the Preserve America grant last fall.

"There has never been a cohesive plan," Wallace said. "We have been doing individual signs but they have never been coordinated. For getting from I-55 to certain areas of the city, there aren't good signs."

The study and design work is expected to be finished in three to five months.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.