Salt Lake engineers seein' neon

In the good ol' days of downtown — when people shopped and played there instead of heading to the suburban Wal-Mart and adjoining megaplex — Salt Lake City was known for its abundance of neon.

Bright signs lit Utah's capital and ushered visitors to destinations throughout the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s.

"It was one of the most illuminated cities in the country," recalls Kirk L. Brimley, who has been in the Salt Lake sign business for 67 years. "Main Street in particular. It used to be a real thrill for us as kids to ride up there and see the neon that stretched for what seemed like forever."

Nowadays, with downtown less a nighttime destination and more a haven for 9-to-5 workers, there isn't much neon to be found.

But that could change under a revamped plan from Mayor Rocky Anderson that would splash neon parking signs throughout downtown. The Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency Board, which is the City Council, will have a chance to vote on Anderson's plan at its monthly meeting tonight.

The mayor proposed a similar idea last year and got the City Council to back it then. The council, acting as the RDA Board, allocated $45,000 for the effort. But nearly two years later, no parking-lot owners have been willing to cough up the $1,250 matching funds needed to buy the signs, which run $2,500 each.

Now the mayor's revised plan calls for the RDA to waive the 50-50 requirement and let the city pay for the entire sign cost and then install the signs free in downtown parking lots.

But now the City Council isn't sold on the idea.

While the council has approved zoning that would facilitate the signs, it has yet to decide whether it will pay for the full cost of the signs by waiving the 50-50 requirement. If the signs are so great, some council members ask, why isn't the private sector willing to pay for them?

"If it's such a good idea, I would expect more enthusiasm," Councilman Dale Lambert said.

Other council members say downtown's parking problem isn't a dearth of stalls or signage, it's that there is no free parking downtown. Maybe, some council members figure, the RDA's money could be better spent as some sort of subsidy that would allow people to park for free at certain lots downtown.

"I'm surprised at the lengths people will go, sometimes even myself, to park for free," Councilman Dave Buhler said. "Until we get people to feel like it's OK to pay for parking I don't know if signs will do much good."