Support Sought for Downtown Omaha Wayfinding Project
March 01, 2008
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a continuing series of entries from the first Omaha Catalogue of Urban Design Philanthropy, a compendium of strategic giving opportunities that focus on the city’s natural and built environments. The Omaha Catalogue was published in December 2007 by Omaha by Design and the Omaha Community Foundation. It has attracted donations from Omaha’s philanthropic community at both the foundation and individual level, including a $10,000 gift to the Big Garden and a $25,000 gift to the South 24th Street Tree of Life Project. For more information on how to donate to a project, contact Connie Spellman, director of Omaha by Design, or Sara Boyd, vice president of the Omaha Community Foundation, at 402.342.3458.
On any given day, the streets and sidewalks of downtown Omaha are filled with thousands of locals and visitors. A growing number are living and working in the vicinity, while others may have traveled across states and continents to take in the city’s list of first-rate attractions.
What’s missing from this human mix is a comprehensive signage system that meets the pedestrian and motorist needs of this diverse group and reflects Omaha’s image as a premier Midwestern city.
Enter the Downtown Omaha Wayfinding Project. Spearheaded by the Mayor’s Office and the City of Omaha Department of Planning, the project was developed by the internationally renowned Joel Katz Design Associates in conjunction with input from local stakeholder groups. Its goals are fivefold:
* To help people find their way around a physical environment with which they might be unfamiliar;
* To reveal a deeper understanding and new possibilities within an environment a person may be somewhat familiar with;
* To enhance the perception of Omaha across a broad and diverse group of audiences;
* To support and encourage a more intensive use of downtown resources; and
* To be flexible and expandable to other areas of the city.
The Katz firm has completed the research, documentation and analysis phase; the conceptual and schematic design phase; and the design development document. Funding for these phases was provided by the City of Omaha.
The proposed system consists of three components – pedestrian destination panels, pedestrian maps and vehicular signs. With the pedestrian signs and maps, color will be used to signify one of five code destination categories: Omaha, Cultural, Public, Open Space and Transit. Among the planned features on the pedestrian maps are “You are here” markers, parking structures to help visitors return to their cars and recommended walking streets.
The total estimated cost for fabricating and installing the system is $450,000 to $500,000. Cost estimates are also available for smaller components of the project. For example, the estimated cost of assembly for all of the pedestrian signs is $6,900. The estimated cost for all of the gateway vehicular signs is $62,000, and the estimated cost for the remainder of the vehicular signs is $89,000.