Given the cost (at $210 mil. +, plus overruns) of the newest iteration of a Raleigh Convention Center, you would have thought that the City could have added a functional marquee to the building?perhaps instead of that shimmer thing they did install? to avoid the need for cheesy trailer-mounted signs to announce major upcoming events in Raleigh. Instead, roadsides are cluttered with the moveable signage on a fairly regular basis.
And the trailer-mounted signs aren’t inexpensive, either, with some starting at $25,000 or so each to purchase.
While temporary signage has a fully legitimate purpose, the trailers that clog and distract on downtown roadsides and entry points into the city seem to indicate a need for one of two things:
1. the recognition that there’s not enough consistently going on in Raleigh to warrant a permanent marquee to herald new events, or
2. the need for permanent, flexible signage of some type to replace the ad hoc, cheesy approach of roadside trailers that we now use semi-regularly.
Suggestions? Though I am loathe to suggest more efficient government (glad we don’t always get all of the government we pay for) maybe the City can sell off the shimmer wall, for example, and use the proceeds to install an electronic marquee or similar?something useful to residents, visitors, and city enterprises alike.