It’s looking like TD Garden will go without a new banner this year. If you want to string one across Main Street in Concord, though, that’s another story.
Concord is now taking applications for the cross-street banners on Loudon Road and South Main Street. But it’ll cost as much as $3,600, and there are some restrictions on what designs will pass muster.
The city council this month approved a set of rules for the two banner locations – stretching 50 feet across Loudon Road and 30 feet across South Main Street – as well as the 98 lampposts downtown fitted with brackets.
For the banners, City Manager Tom Aspell said applicants will have to engage a private company that can design the mesh, vinyl-coated banners to set specifications and safely install them with police details watching out for traffic.
“In our research, we’ve found that there are private sign companies that can do this work in its entirety,” Aspell said, “however, the work is not cheap.”
All told, it’ll cost about $3,500 for a private company to manufacture, install and remove the banner with traffic control, he said, plus a $100 fee to the city.
The stated purpose of the banners is to promote “community-based, cultural, educational, and civic events” and to provide information about services and programs sponsored by the city.
That is to say: Downtown businesses can’t put up advertisements for their Memorial Day sales.
Specifically, the eligibility standards say that the banners “shall not have a primary purpose of endorsing or promoting commercial interests,” and “shall not include campaign messages that endorse or oppose a candidate for election to public office.”
Business logos aren’t permitted except to recognize sponsors of eligible events, and in that case, the logos can’t exceed 20 percent of the banner area. The designs are all subject to approval by the city.
For lamp post banners, the city’s downtown services crew will do the installation and removal. The cost of their time to hang and remove the banners is about $50 per pole, wrote Carlos Baía, the deputy city manager for development, but the councilors agreed with his recommendation to charge less.
“Staff feels that charging $50 or more per pole would be a disincentive at this time and is, instead, recommending that a fee of $25 per pole be levied,” he wrote in a report to the council, noting that the per-banner fee is essentially $12.50, because there are two per pole.
Chris Brown, the chairman of the board of directors for the Black Ice Pond Hockey Championship, said his organization used the lamp post banners ahead of the hockey tournament to create hype in the city.
It worked, he said, as he quickly saw a response from residents.
“You saw Facebook posts and texts from people. It’s like a two-week countdown to Black Ice. The wreaths have gone down and the flags have come up,” he said. “It’s the preparation and anticipation of the event.”
The smaller banners, which are 2 feet wide and between 4 feet and 5 feet tall, can be costly, too, however.
“We were shocked when we got the cost to make 50 flags,” he said, adding that it was “several thousand dollars.”
Brown’s organization is a nonprofit that essentially partners with the city on the outdoor hockey tournament. Over the past seven years, he said, it has donated more than $80,000 for parks and recreation efforts and intends to raise more money to support the new skate house going in at White Park.
In that way, “it made perfect sense,” to post banners in the downtown. But he also sees a challenge ahead for tight-budgeted nonprofits to pay for the manufacturing costs.
“It’s a little cost-prohibitive to have organizations spend that type of money,” he said.
More information about the banners, including applications, is available at the city’s website, or by contacting banners@concordnh.gov. Applications for July 2017 to July 2018 should be submitted by Friday, but will also be accepted after the deadline.
Visitors to the downtown have by now noticed the bicycle-themed art installed as part of the Kimball Jenkins School of Art’s Big Bicycle Project.
And apparently someone made off with a piece of one of the exhibits.
Ryan Linehan of the art school distributed a poster showing the two-part sculpture Fearless and Bullish.
Fearless appears with a brown face and handlebars for horns, with a glut of bicycle tires across its middle. Its counterpart, Bullish, is a small pink bike with white tires, tassles and sets of training wheels on the front and back.
In case someone unknowingly rode away on Bullish, it should be noted that she was part of the sculpture.
Linehan noted that Bullish could be returned to the art school, “no questions asked.”
Concord is celebrating National Public Works Week this week.
There will be a celebration Tuesday at Memorial Field from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., featuring “Touch a Truck, display tables, career opportunities, live demonstrations, a Pay-As-You-Throw trash bag raffle, and Battle of the Back-hoe,” according to a statement from the city.
Later Tuesday, at 7 p.m., the city’s parking committee will hold a public forum about proposed changes to fees and fines and meter expansion.
The forum will be held in the city council’s chambers, and more information about the changes is posted on the city’s website.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)