New art approved for Centennial Plaza New art approved for Centennial Plaza (February 13, 2004)

Council members voted Tuesday night to commission a sculpture from Colorado artist Dee Clements for the Centennial Plaza.

Clements has proposed creating a life-size bronze sculpture of a young man with an old-fashioned baggage cart for the plaza, which was completed to commemorate the city's centennial in 2002.

The sculpture comes with a $50,000 price tag -- plus an additional $3,000 for transportation and installation. City policy calls for one percent of all public project budgets, which total $1 million or more, to be spent on art, but one percent of the plaza's construction costs, $20,000, is not enough to pay for the sculpture.

Council voted unanimously to take the needed amount, $33,000, from the art budget of the nearby Adobe Building towards this sculpture, instead of using the money to commission another piece for the historic spot.

-- Grace Rauh

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