The City of Pensacola is hosting an interest meeting for any artists or designers interested in submitting a design for the Pensacola welcome sign structure contest, which is underway now through April 26. The meeting will take place on Thursday, April 13 from 9-10 a.m. in the Hagler-Mason Conference Room, located on the second floor of City Hall at 222 W. Main St.
The meeting is not required in order to submit a design, but anyone interested in learning more about the project or the contest submission process is encouraged to attend.
The City of Pensacola is hosting the design contest for artists to create a three-dimensional welcome structure, which will greet as many as 100,000 visitors daily on the Pensacola side of the Pensacola Bay Bridge, or Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. Bridge.
The city is working in partnership with Dalrymple Sallis Architecture for the contest, with a goal of creating a design that will greet visitors to Pensacola for decades to come. Funding for the project will be provided in part through a Joint Participation Agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation.
The selected design will be fabricated and installed by the city, to be placed in the area between Bayfront Parkway and Gregory Street facing south-southeast. Please see the project area map for location details.
All interested artists are encouraged to submit their designs for consideration to submissions@cityofpensacola.c
A panel of city staff and citizens will review submissions and select the best design using a scoring rubric. Artists are asked to take into consideration the location’s aesthetics, physical limitations, Pensacola history and cohesiveness when creating their design.
Artists should review the application packet for more detailed information about the design criteria, dimensions, materials and submission requirements. For more information or questions, please email submissions@cityofpensacola.c
Seems an ideal location for “A City of Five Flags” display. The council can direct it by ordinance or resolution (both subject to mayoral veto) or by “sundry motion” (not subject to mayoral veto). State law expressly gives the council the power to adopt the city seal. In 2000, the council affirmatively voted to confirm that the decision about which flags to fly in the Five Flags display is a legislative function. A big commission involving Judy Bense recommended which specific flags to fly. Mayor Hayward’s unilateral action later to remove the Confederate flag violated the city charter’s separation of powers. Oddly, he replaced it with a 1900 Florida flag with two red stripes believed to represent the blood spilt by Florida’s Confederate soldiers. Anyone see the irony in that? A more reasonable decision if made by the council might have been to change to “A City of Four Flags” pretending that the civil war and slavery never took place. In 2014, Councilman Bare proposed adopting an official city motto – “The City of Five Flags.” City Administrator Castille objected on behalf of the ever-absent Mayor Hayward. Hayward’s view was that people might confuse Pensacola with Dubuque, Iowa also called The City of Five Flags. Friends in Iowa tell me that they are not confused. Hayward also thought that the reference to “Five Flags” would discourage people from wanting to live in the city. He wanted to replace us with “a really cool group of hip people” much as Mayor Reeves wants to replace us with “digital nomads.” I have long said the council should hold a citywide vote on the Five Flags issue. The council should make the decision on this project but first decide on the Five Flags issue – Yes or No. As a saving grace, if city residents don’t like the art work they can always adopt their own ordinance to do something else. The city charter does gives city voters the power to adopt their own ordinances. Assuming someone does submit a Five Flags-themed art work, how about sending all city voters a mailer with a picture of all submissions and include a postcard so each voter can vote for their top three.