By Olivia Alveshere, ABC Newspapers
The Spring Lake Park City Council May 18 approved new signage for Central Park Liquor with hopes to draw more customers into the store.
The Liquor Commission received two quotes, the lower from St. Cloud's Scenic Sign Corporation for $84,775.
The current signage was installed 14 years ago, and its reader board is no longer supported by Daktronics, according to a council memo from City Administrator Dan Buchholtz.
New installations will include three signs for the building, an LED border tube to run along the roofline and a new cabinet sign with all the bells and whistles.
Liquor store manager Joyce Swanson proposed four capital improvement projects this fall in an effort to rebrand the store.
Inside, "we're bright and clean and well-organized," Swanson said in an interview.
But the store's exterior - untouched for decades - does not match that aesthetic, she said.
The council approved bids to paint the exterior of the building in October; that job will be finished in June for a cost of $8,365.
The signs will take six weeks to manufacture, so council's hope is to have them installed before the Fourth of July weekend, typically a busy one for the store.
The signage will be paid for through a tax-exempt capital lease.
U.S. Bancorp will purchase the signs on behalf of Central Park Liquor, and then the store will make quarterly payments of $3,796 to U.S. Bancorp over the next six years.
A 2.25 percent interest rate will see the store pay $91,104. At the end of the lease, Central Park Liquor will purchase the sign for $1.
"This financing option allows the city to take advantage of the anticipated increase in sales generated by the store's re-branding effort and thereby reduce the impact of the purchase on the store's cash reserves,"
Buchholtz wrote in another council memo.
Council Member Bob Nelson was thrilled with the financing plan but was concerned about the angle of the sign.
The sign's current angle does not allow travelers heading south on Highway 65 to see the sign for as long as they might if it were angled toward the road, Nelson said.
Building official Barry Brainard told the council he thought tweaking the angle should be no sweat for Scenic Sign Corporation, but if there is a cost attached, the council did not want to have to put the order on hold for another two weeks until the council's next meeting, so members agreed to allot up to $5,000 to get that job done.
"It'll probably come in at way less," Nelson said.
It did not.
Scenic Sign Corp. said adjustments to the angle could be made for $5,000 on the dot, Buchholz reported at the council's June 1 meeting.
The adjustments would increase visibility for drivers making their way south on Highway 65 by approximately one car length, Buchholtz said.
The council agreed that a $5,000 price tag was not worth the small gain in visibility and voted to accept the original quote.
