The first prototype of Golden’s new information kiosks will be going up soon in Kumsheen Park.
The four-sided structure, which is part of Golden’s Resort Municipality Initiative (RMI) Visitor Sign Program, will show residents and tourists what is going on around town.
“The idea came about originally from these cylinders you see in tourism towns where everyone tacks up posters, and concerts that are going on, but they can be pretty grungy. This will be sort of like that, but you won’t see ‘for sale’ signs posted everywhere. It will be a little more polished,” said Jon Wilsgard, Chief Administrative Officer with the Town of Golden.
“It’s newly engineered and designed, so from my experience with these sorts of things, we need to build it first then take a step back and ask if this is going to work. What’s good about this, what isn’t?”
The idea is that Kicking Horse Culture will manage one of the sides, while Tourism Golden will take care of the other three, which will likely be semi-permanent displays being changed out once in a while, every one to two years.
The timberframe design, green metal roof and rock base of the kiosk is in line with the facade of other community signs and structures.
“Basically we’re providing the product, the medium, and these other organizations will handle the interpretation and the content,” said Wilsgard. “It should be built before the end of October…If we like it and want to continue with it, then we have other places in town where we’ll put more.”
Spirit Square, the downtown core, and south town locations will be looked at. And if the kiosk does not need to be redesigned, that could be as early as next year.
In other RMI projects, the highway corridor, a landscaping and beautification project on Highway 1that was delayed this year, will be underway early next year. The amenity hub in Spirit Square is currently going through a redesign which includes stakeholder meetings.
“If we’re lucky, we’ll start phase 1 next year. That probably will not include the stage, it will be the prep work around it, like moving the bathrooms and redesigning the dyke so that we can create an amphitheatre,” said Wilsgard.
