EDMONDS — It’s an Edmonds kind of ending.
The city’s new gateway sign got an official welcome.
After extensive public feedback online and in meetings, the final design for the sign got a $20,000 nod from the City Council last week.
The post-and-panel sign by Clayton Moss is blue with earth-tones, a tree-lined background, water and mountain silhouette by muralist Andy Eccleshall.
“We’re hoping to get it up by the fall,” said Carrie Hite, the city’s parks director.
The process to replace the decades-old fixture started a year ago. It was agreed that the peeling sign at the junction of Edmonds Way and Fifth Avenue South had worn out its welcome. The brown sign has a ferry sailing on blue water toward mountains.
Moss, whose firm Forma has done other signs around town, was hired to design the replacement.
Some people didn’t like his initial design, saying it was too modern. Others wanted a say-so.
So a nine-person committee was formed and public feedback sought.
People weighed in on details such as whether the sign should — or shouldn’t have — a ferry, seagull and cursive writing (which some say kids aren’t taught anymore). They debated whether it should have old-time charm or be Northwest bold.
The post-and-panel sign by Moss was the top choice in the last online survey. It garnered 44 percent of the vote, with 576 as first choice and 338 as second choice. There isn’t a ferry on the sign. Or a seagull. And three words are in cursive.
A design by classic sign painter Mack Benek, who hand paints his art, got a 29-percent vote, with 381 first-choice votes and 280 as a second choice. His sign had a seagull, ferry and one word in cursive.
The new sign will have lighting, which the old one didn’t.
Lighting figured into about $3,000 of the $20,000 cost, Hite said. Fabrication costs by Moss are $15,000. The tab for Washington State Department of Transportation fees is about $2,000.
Hite said it was worth the wait.
“I feel like taking a few steps back in the process really engaged a lot of our community,” she said. “It wasn’t just the gateway sign. It was the identity of our community.”
Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown.
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