Interim signs provide direction to downtown

Officials hoping to have final designs in place by next year

MOSES LAKE — At least temporarily, residents and visitors to downtown Moses Lake are starting to see the signs.

A handful of directional interim signs have been placed at the entrances to the city's downtown core, by business leaders hoping to bring people to Third Avenue. Showing the downtown Sinkiuse Square clock tower, the signs have been installed as an interim draw until a more permanent gateway is installed next year.

Jacie Daschel said the signs should have been there all along.

Daschel is this year's president of the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce, and also sits as a board member for the Moses Lake Business Association which was behind the project. Daschel said their purpose will be to draw people to downtown businesses, particularly those people who aren't familiar with the city.

"Especially with construction going on this fall, we want to give every opportunity to our downtown businesses to survive through construction," Daschel said.

The temporary signs come during the same year as a downtown construction project slated to redesign Sinkiuse Square and one and a half blocks of Third Avenue. Parts of the downtown area will be closed during the redesign this summer and fall, and Daschel said the business association wanted to do everything they could for the businesses during that time.

There are four signs, about the size of a speed limit sign: at the Alder Street Fill, Pioneer Way and Third Avenue and two near Broadway and Third Avenue. They have been up for about three weeks.

Daschel acknowledged the signs are a little small. But she said for the amount of time they're going to be up, they should do their duty over the next year.

"It's just the first step," she said. " People need to know that it's just the first step and we're going to have some bigger and better things around here."

Gail Hellewell is the owner of Cobblestone Corner downtown and said out-of-town visitors drive through Moses Lake on the highways and major streets, not knowing where the downtown shopping area is. She has been calling for these type of signs for a long time, and said business owners just want visitors to know where the need to go.

Hellewell agreed the interim signs are a bit small, but has hopes the final ones will tell people where they need to go to get to downtown Moses Lake.

"Once the revitalization is done we're hoping to get bigger, better, eye-appealing sings," Hellewell said, noting she would like to see a sign with the Moses Lake blue heron logo.

The signs will be replaced next year with what Daschel describes as gateway signage, to be proposed by developer Roger Brooks over the next year. Brooks, the CEO of Destination Development, is in the early stages of creating a downtown plan to include branding and marketing concepts to lure visitors to the area. The city signed an agreement with Brooks earlier this year, and the development guru has already made initial visits to the city.

Daschel said she hopes to see Brooks' sign plans by the end of the year, with hopes of getting them installed next year.

"Hopefully, the plan is to have something really striking," Daschel said.

The city has said Brooks plans to hold a public meeting on his plans later this month.