Outdated way-finding signs in downtown Salt Lake City will likely get a facelift before the City Creek Development opens its doors this spring. The Salt Lake City Council will vote Tuesday to allocate funding for the project. Jason Mathis of the Downtown Alliance says the last time Salt Lake City updated the signs was prior to the Olympics, so they still lead the way to the Delta Center, which is now Energy Solutions Arena, and direct visitors to the ZCMI Center and Crossroads Plaza Mall, which no longer exist.
“How much would it suck if people show up at City Creek Center and are trying to find their way some place else and the signs don’t make sense, they don’t have the right information or they can’t find the signs?” He says. “So this is going to give us an opportunity to update the existing signs with correct information, to repaint them, to make them look a little bit better.”
Mathis says the Downtown Alliance has proposed $200,000 for basic updates, but wants a more long term re-design of the system, which would cost upwards of $2 million. Councilman Soren Simonson says there are several proposals on the table.
“I think the biggest question is how much do we put into kind of refurbishing the signs right now,” he says, “versus looking at a long term strategy to do kind of a major overhaul that would include more extensive sign and information kiosks and even some signage that would allow a little bit more flexibility for special events and banners.”
City Creek Center is slated to open March of 2012.
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