Grand Junction updating street signs with logo, but for what cost?

Grand Junction adopted a new logo about 15 years ago, that's not news. The news is, now that logo will be all across the city, hundreds of times.

It's something you may not notice at first glance, but the City is putting a modified version of the new logo they adopted on street signs, starting along the Horizon Drive corridor.

"In an effort just to make them more aesthetically pleasing," said Paul Jagim, traffic engineer for the City of Grand Junction.

The City is updating the signs from Horizon Drive to Downtown, hopefully before JUCO. They're hoping the little logo will help differentiate city and county lines to drivers, and also help tourists know where they are, in hopes they come back.

"So we're just adding this change to our normal sign replacement program," said Jagim. "We'll work on our oldest signs and work forward."

There are over 5,000 signs dotting our streets, and they’re all made locally, at the traffic HQ in Grand Junction. People like Scott Frazier make them. When we met up with him, he was making the new West Main Street sign.

Frazier said the new retro-reflective material helps drivers out at night, and that’s part of the reason they’re replacing the signs, in addition to the logo change.

"You can actually read it from greater distances," said Frazier.

He cuts the letters out of a blue film, taking the parts of the sign you don’t want, away. Then, he adds the new logo. It’s basically a big sticker.

"We expect maybe 10 to 15 percent additional costs (with the addition of the logo,)" said Jagim.

The first signs like these started going up about a month ago.

"Just the panel and just the materials alone is about $25," said Jagim.

It's a change that may look insignificant to locals, but the city thinks will make a big difference.

"it's a small change if you will, but there's lots of efforts being done across the community to add a sense of character to our valley, and a sense of place, and so this is just one small piece," said Jagim.

The City said there are about 500 street signs that still have the old logo. The signs that don't have any logo were made in that 15-year stretch when the City switched to a new logo, but decided to ditch logos for street signs altogether.

It should take about two years to replace those 500 signs with the old logos.