The city of Seguin is literally shining a new light on Central Park. The Seguin City Council on Monday approved spending $180,000 to bring new permanent and seasonal lighting to the town square.
The park is regularly lit up each year during the holiday season, and the city years ago decided to leave canopy lights in the trees in the park. Even with that lighting, the park can still be very dimly lit during nighttime events.
Blaire Friar, director of destination management, says they are hiring The Perfect Light company to handle the design and installation of the new lighting.
“The existing tree canopy lights do need to be removed and we are proposing replacing them with permanent landscape lighting to actually improve the lighting quality in the park. In addition, the second portion of this project is seasonal Christmas lights that will wrap 24 of the existing trees in Central Park. And this would match a lot of what you’ve seen with what the courthouse did it last year — just kind of improving that holiday lighting effect,” said Friar.
Friar says this will be a much better solution than the current string lights that are used in the park. She says many of those lights are damaged by squirrels or falling branches.
“The string lights in the canopies are not truly rated to be permanent. We have not been recommended by any contractor to install these lights for more than 90 days. And while appealing, it does look so wonderful during the holidays, it is not a true lighting solution for the park. So, the proposed landscape lighting that we have before you would truly illuminate the ground level sidewalks, improve the lighting quality in the park,” said Friar.
The new lights won’t just be in the trees during the holiday season. Friar says there will be permanent lighting installed that will significantly improve the overall lighting in the park after dark.
“Our permanent landscape lighting proposal includes three LED moon lighting. These are lights in the canopies pointing down at the ground level in 24 trees, as well as two up lighting fixtures at the base of five trees within the center of park. We are also proposing six period lighted bollards to go in areas where there is not tree coverage, so to add additional lighting in other parts (of the park),” said Friar.
The seasonal lighting should be in place for the start of the Christmas season, which means that this year’s official lighting of Central Park should be bigger and brighter following the Holiday Stroll Parade on Thursday, December 3.
“The seasonal Christmas lights would be wrapping 24 tree trunks up to the branches with miniature lights for the holiday season. This cost includes installation, removal, and storage. So permanent landscaping cost $92,700. Our seasonal Christmas lighting cost is almost $79,000,” said Friar.
Mayor Donna Dodgen says this lighting upgrade has been a long time coming. She says it was time to remove and replace those string lights with a better lighting system that will help bring more people to the park.
“We initially used those and lighted them all the time because for safety in that park. And so, it’s very important that I think along with what’s happening downtown and the growth and the changes, that we rise to that next level and do those sorts of things (to improve lighting). The squirrels have been a real big issue. We love them dearly. They’re tenacious. But that’s been an issue. The other thing I wanted to point out is that our electrical department spends quite a bit of time before the holidays to fix those (lights), but they have also agreed to take all of those out for us, so that will be a cost savings as well,” said Dodgen.
Officials with The Perfect Light company say they will be using materials that will also be more resistant to damage from squirrels.
The new lights for the holiday season will be the first to be installed, with the permanent lighting solutions installed during the first quarter of next year.
