Phoenix Park Bridge Project Aims to Add Lights and Color
Eric Christenson, photos by Andrea Paulseth |
A new project from the combined brainpower of Downtown Eau Claire Inc., UW-Eau Claire, and the Eau Claire Noon Rotary Club would put dynamic, programmable lights on the Phoenix Park bridge this year. At a windy press gathering in in front of the historic bridge, which has been there since 1903, the groups shed some light (wink) on the $250,000 to $300,000 project.
“We want to create more energy and light (in downtown) and bathe this bridge in color.” – Salina Heller, Downtown Eau Claire Inc.
Initial plans merely sought to splash some regular ol’ white light on the bridge, but soon the project evolved and included the talents of Jason Anderson, UWEC’s assistant director of conferences and event production, and his crew of light programming students. With this expertise behind them, over 300 individual lights will be affixed to the bridge, capable of projecting millions of different colors on the uprights and trusses for themed displays, regularly scheduled light shows, and big events like the Let It Glow holiday tree lighting in Phoenix Park.
“We want to create more energy and light (in downtown) and bathe this bridge in color,” said Salina Heller, of Downtown Eau Claire.
Heller said this project takes inspiration from another, the Big Four Bridge in Louisville, Ky., which crosses the Ohio River. Heller said the organizers of that (much larger) project told her that lighting the Big Four Bridge was a real economic driver for their city: More than 2 million people visited the bridge in the first 18 months after it was lit. Eau Claire organizers are hoping something similar happens here.
The Eau Claire Noon Rotary Club is the fundraising arm of this project and hopes to get the six-figure price tag raised by mid-August, the lights ordered and shipped by September, installed by October, tested in November, and have it all good to go in time for Let It Glow in December. Jerry Kuehl of the Rotary Club told me they’ve got about $40,000 raised already; soon they’ll look to club members, individual donors, coporate donors, the Chamber of Commerce and DECI memberships, and then give everyone an opportunity to contribute via crowdsourcing.
When it’s all said and done, if you have dinner and drinks downtown or catch a show, you won’t have to linger around Phoenix Park for long to enjoy a full-scale light show, right on there on the Chippewa River.
“This is a project that’s going to complement all the wonderful things that we have going on downtown. We’re pretty excited about it,” Heller said. “It’s these quality of life types of things that we’re really trying to promote.”
