Unwelcome delays for Fort Worth sign

Eleven years into a project that seeks to install a “Hollywood-like” welcome sign along Fort Worth’s eastern corridor, the city has nothing to show for it except a dent in its public art fund.

Last week the City Council agreed to devote more than 10 percent of its public art budget to pay an artist and landscape architect for the final designs of the welcome sign, which is one day expected to boast eight-foot tall steel letters declaring the city’s name, spread out over 500 feet along the north side of Interstate 30.

Plans and initial funding for the project were first secured in 2004 when the city received a $265,000 Governor’s Community Achievement Award from the Texas Department of Transportation.

But while the sign’s concept was approved long ago, the details of the project — the exact location, artist and final design — have endured a series of setbacks and delays.

More than a decade later, the project’s expected cost is $470,194, about half of which will be footed by Fort Worth.

As several council members pointed out, the city has many well-traveled arteries and certainly doesn’t have time and money to invest in erecting a welcome sign along each of them.

Anne Allen, public art project manager for the Arts Council of Fort Worth, told the Star-Telegram’s Sandra Baker that “Fort Worth certainly deserves a welcome monument that is unique and showcases our city.”

Indeed, it does. And the one the city has in mind will be, if ever it is completed.

This story was originally published July 27, 2015 at 5:06 PM with the headline "Unwelcome delays for Fort Worth sign."