The new gateway sign was installed Monday above Cary Street at the western entrance to Carytown. (Photos courtesy Kelley Banks)
Carytown’s new gateway sign is up and greeting visitors at the shopping district’s western entrance.
The Art Deco-style sign was erected Monday and is set to be illuminated for the first time tonight with lighting scheduled at 6:30.
Suspended above Cary Street in the 3500 block between Thompson and Nansemond streets, the two-sided sign with neon tubing and LED lights is held aloft by steel wires attached to two 25-foot steel poles, creating an arch-like entrance for cars passing underneath.
The structure is designed to sustain high winds and replaces a decades-old wooden sign that had stood beside Cary across from Thompson.
More than a decade in the making, the new sign is the work of the Carytown Merchants Association, which worked with city officials including Councilmember Stephanie Lynch. The sign’s roughly $100,000 cost was covered by American Rescue Plan funds that the city received to help businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The two-sided sign has neon tubing and LED lights that are set to be lit for the first time tonight.
CMA enlisted Campfire & Co. to create an initial branding package and worked with manufacturer Wellcraft, which created the lighting and designed the final product with CMA board member Kelley Banks. Messer Contracting installed the sign and the concrete pole footings and handled underground work.
Banks, co-owner of Carytown’s Merrymaker Fine Paper, said the sign is the culmination of efforts that ramped up over the past two years.
“There were a lot of moving parts and efforts by many, and it’s very gratifying to have a beautiful result that will be iconic for Richmond,” Banks said this week.
With design cues taken from the 1930s-era Carytown Court Shopping Center and the 1928 Byrd Theater, the green and white sign with gold accents reads “Carytown” with “Richmond VA” below it and “Est 1938” above, a nod to the nine-block shopping district’s history.
The sign coincides with CMA’s efforts to establish a business improvement district for Carytown.