Belmont Shore welcome signs months away from completion, parking rates to increase to $2

Replacing the Belmont Shore welcome signs will likely have to wait until 2025 as fabrication and installation of the new signs is expected to take up to nine months, according to an update given to a city commission Thursday. 

The Belmont Shore Parking and Business Improvement Area Commission has been discussing replacing the signs since early 2022. Commissioners voted Thursday to recommend the City Council approve a design, which features the words “Belmont Shore Welcomes You” on the front and silhouettes of sea birds on the back.

Each sign is about 14 feet wide by 6 feet tall and will be illuminated internally to improve visibility at night, according to plans submitted by Selbert Perkins, the firm leading the design process. They would be placed atop 17-foot-tall poles at the intersections of Second Street and Quincy Avenue and Bay Shore Avenue.

The total cost of the project is about $420,000 and the City Council will have to sign off on the expense, which will come out of the Second Street parking meter revenue. 

“This is something we put out to the community, we were very careful to submit this to the community and we’ve been discussing this for years,” said Commission Chair Matt Peterson. “I hope, on behalf of the commission, that what we send to the City Council is received well and is ultimately approved.”

Fabrication of the signs is expected to take nearly four months but finding a contractor as well as planning, permitting and construction could add another five months to the timeline, according to the update.

The city polled residents on four designs in June 2023 and the winner was most similar to the old signage, which has adorned the medians along the bustling Second Street business corridor for decades.

Over the years, however, the signs have fallen into disrepair, with one becoming infested with termites and the other being hit by a vehicle. Two of the criteria commissioners highlighted as important during the discussions were keeping the design in step with the community’s character and keeping it safe. 

Aside from increasing visibility of the sign, being elevated should keep them safe from vehicle accidents in the future.

Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to refer the preferred design and approval of the project to the council despite the double-sided version costing about $60,000 more. 

“If you’re going to do it once, do it right, and hopefully it will be here for a 100 years,” Commissioner Aaron Tofani said.

Parking rate increases

The commission also voted Thursday to refer a price hike for parking along Second Street to the City Council for final approval. 

The current hourly rate for parking in Belmont Shore is $1.75 per hour and the commission is seeking to increase that to $2 per hour. 

If the new rates take effect, Second Street would become one of the most expensive metered parking areas in the city, on par with The Pike Outlets in Downtown. 

Parking meter revenue in Belmont Shore makes up the budget for the commission, which spends the funds on things like cleaning services, security and the new gateway signage project. 

Commissioners said the increase was necessary given inflationary pressures that have driven up the cost of goods and services across the board. 

“We’ve got projects that we wanna do and the goal is to make the business district look great,” Commissioner Jann Kronick-Gath said. “Everything is going up, so we have to do it."

Meters generate hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the commission, with this year's revenue eclipsing $850,000 through June, according to commission data. The city’s fiscal year runs from October through the end of September. 

Commissioners briefly discussed the possibility of extending the hours where people would have to pay to park but ultimately decided not to include any changes in their recommendation to the City Council. For now, paid parking hours at metered spots will remain 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.