Asheville’s directional signs, posted earlier this year around Buncombe County and hailed by city and tourism officials, continue to peel away. After only a couple of months in the weather, the sign project has turned out to be one big mess.
The signs look awful. In fact, several have peeled completely away, to leave nothing but a white panel. I’m surprised that an enterprising artist has yet to take advantage of the newly blank canvas.
The signs were paid for by the local Tourism Development Authority and about $1 million in hotel tax revenues. They were Merje design studio in Pennsylvania and installed by L&H Signs, another Pa. company. Now the TDA and L&H are arguing over a fix to the problem.
I haven’t heard how soon the signs will be fixed. Will they be repaired before the big fall tourist season? Meantime, BlogAsheville is getting together a photo gallery of the ugliness.
16 Comments
Likely a sweetheart no bid contract to a friend of an executive at the Convention bureau and Chamber of Commerce. This is totally bush league and so embarrassing for Asheville.
just for ONCE …. on something… let's try local first.
many of us local professionals could have put together this sign program for a lot less money with a lot more lasting results.
Good call on blank canvas, with all the phenomenal street artists in this town I figured it would be a done deal…or we could have all signs point to I-40
Maybe you should check out the Citizen-Times. They've been covering this for months now. Maybe they can answer your questions.
This is pathetic. Making road signs is not rocket science. How could something like this be so screwed up?
I was so happy they put up those signs but when they started peeling, I was like WTF? How can this even be an argument? They started peeling almost immediately. And the city paid a million dollars for them!?! Oy!
Another wonderful expenditure of your tax money, courtesy of your local government!
I first questioned these signs and the cost and let the TDA and CoC know how I felt. Of course, I got a reply basically saying I was a bad Ashevillean for not always talking positive about Asheville. That's their job; not mine. But for the record, I've been writing about Asheville for many years now. I actually was downtown when the there was no downtown and helped make the changes happen, but I digress. Once I saw the signs, I let the TDA and CoC know I thought they had done a nice job, blah, blah, blah. I should have waited at least a week to say 'nice job.' By then they had started falling apart. Go figure.
why haven't these signs been fixed yet? the TDA needs to eat crow about their poor choice of hiring an (inept) outside company to do this and contract some local artists and get these signs fixed ASAP.
We must not have had any competent sign makers in Asheville huh?
Per Marla over at the chamber, they are actually having the city pull down the worst of the offenders, at least the ones in the city limits. Sounds like they would rather have plain white signs then crappy looking peeling ones. There are some that are peeling up around Weaverville that haven't been touched.
I really can't believe this is happening. Seriously. Is this the first time the companies involved have ever made outdoor signs? How did they get the contract to do work without a check on their track records? Bushleague.
In a few different media outlets, I've seen reference to the fact that no local companies bid on the project. Well, having some knowledge of how processes like these take place I have to ask the question: Were ITB's (Invitations to Bid) sent to any local companies?
That's how it usually works when you need something done under contract such as this….you send out ITB's to the companies you potentially want to contract with. They send you a bid if they are interested in taking on the work and then you make your decision on which bid to accept. Oversimplified for brevity's sake, but you get the idea.
I'd prefer to look a the blank metal than the peeling metal. Still pretty disappointing…
yup
This on Amboy?