Council to set aside art funding for garage mural

Water Street parking garage, courthouse lawn to get art projects

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville City Council is expected to allocate more than a million dollars in funding for public art projects at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Once the money is transferred, the Cultural Council will have a total of eight art projects in the works.

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Artists submitted designs for the six-level Water Street parking garage more than a year ago, but city budget cuts put the project on hold.

Tony Allegretti, executive director of the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, said once the money is allocated Tuesday, the three finalists -- David Griggs of Denver, Laura Haddad of Seattle and Ray King of Philadelphia -- will present their garage designs to the community before an artist is picked.

“It will likely be a combination of mural and some 3-D elements,” Allegretti told WJCT News.

The Cultural Council received pushback from local artists earlier this year for putting a call to artists outside of Jacksonville.

The City Council is also set to approve $759,000 for an installation on the courthouse lawn, one of the largest public art projects in the city. About 1 percent of every city building built using capital improvement dollars goes to public art.

The council will also vote on a $19,602 Capital Improvement allocation for an art project at Cuba Hunter Park. Allegretti said that will likely be a sculpture, but like with the courthouse project, the type of art will be decided by an art selection panel.

The meeting begins at 5 p.m. at City Hall.

For more on this story and to hear the WJCT radio broadcast, go to news.wjct.org.