A St. Albert councillor wants the city to acknowledge special days and events with a programmable coloured light display at St. Albert Place.
Coun. Mike Killick said he has drafted a motion to make the project happen, and will put it forward for council debate in the near future.
“I just thought it would be a great opportunity while we're doing (the green retrofit project) in St. Albert Place ... to add LED lighting outside of the brick balcony just outside of council chambers,” he said. “There's so many good things that happen in St. Albert, like (Friday was) Green Shirt Day for organ donation, coming out of the Humboldt bus crash. We could have them for Orange Shirt Day, we can have them purple for (Stop Abuse in Families Paint the Town Purple campaign), and we could have them rainbow coloured for recognition of Pride,” he said.
“It would be a way to show the whole community that we have the ability to recognize all types of events, and probably many more that I'm not even aware of.”
The lights, which would be installed on the balcony outside of council chambers, could cost as little as $5,000, according to a recent report provided to city council.
The report, completed as part of an information request submitted by Killick in February, says recognitory lighting could be installed as a one-off project, or as part of the 2024 green retrofit project planned for city hall.
“A (low) class budget to complete the requested scope as a programmable LED string lighting package would range from $5,000 to $30,000 installed,” reads the report prepared by Jay Mason, the city's director of public operations. “A budgeted value to complete the requested scope as a programmable LED brick-mounted soffit-lighting package would range from $98,000 to $113,000 installed.”
Killick said although administration's preliminary estimate ranges from $5,000 to $113,000 depending on the quality of installation, he expects commercial-grade work will cost between $100,000 and $125,000.
“Going with commercial grade so that it'll last a long time, we won't have to worry about it from a maintenance and operations point of view moving forward,” he said. He hopes the cost could be covered through contingency funding set aside for the green retrofit project.
“I think this would be something good that we can do and that we can utilize year-round.”
Mason's report also says administration is reviewing internal procedures for how the city recognizes special days.
“Expanding plans to create a committee or other mechanism to govern how this lighting would be used, similar to the City of Edmonton's committee for High Level Bridge lighting, could be added to the scope of work,” Mason said.
In 2014, the City of Edmonton spent $2.5 million to install 60,000 LED lights along the High Level Bridge, lit nearly every day to acknowledge events and initiatives. A calendar on the city's website gives information about what each day's colour recognizes.
