City Council prefers locally-produced mural for downtown parking lot

DOWNEY – As the city council mulled over four paint designs for Downtown Downey’s parking structure, the general consensus was readily apparent: “We can do better.”

The City of Downey continues to try and update the downtown parking lot in an attempt to make it safer and more appealing to park at. Part of those efforts include interior and exterior painting, regular washing, and updated security cameras.

On Tuesday, city staff presented four potential options for a simple geometric mural to be painted on one of the external walls of the structure.

However, none of the city council seemed overly impressed, expressing desires for a design more telling and representative of Downey as a whole.

Councilwoman Claudia M. Frometa said that the design should come from a local company or artist, that “speaks to the beauty and the history of this city.”

“[The four options presented] were colorful and have that avant-garde design, but certainly I really believe Downey can do better in design. We’re going to live with that mural for many years, and being the first it’s got to be, it’s really got to be on point.”

Mayor Pro Tem Hector Sosa agreed with Frometa, suggesting that the city reach out to those within the downtown area.

“I would like to get some input from some of the local businesses in the downtown district,” said Sosa. “Going back to our current Spend Local Campaign, I would like to open this up – and we can keep these aside – open it up to some of the local artists, see if they can come up with a design that encompasses Downey and it’s history, and give someone an opportunity to come up with a design for that.”

Ultimately, it was decided that the issue of the design would come back to the council at a later date. Meanwhile, the general painting of the structure is expected to begin this month and be completed by the end of March. MEAR Construction was awarded the contract for the painting, at a total cost of $62,500 to the city.

Work on the camera upgrades are also reported as “near completion,” awaiting delivery of the cameras for installation.