On December 2, KC Parks unveiled new wayfinding signage that is being installed in Penn Valley Park.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Penn Valley Park is a regional park with a variety of activities and monuments located within its boundaries including Liberty Memorial, National World War I Museum and Memorial, The Scout, Penn Valley Lake, The Firefighter’s Fountain, Off Leash Area, Pioneer Mother, Just Off Broadway Theatre and Baseball fields.
The park consists of two areas, the west and east sides with Penn Valley Drive dividing the park in two.
As a regional park, Penn Valley Park draws visitors from not only the surrounding neighborhoods, the entire city but also surrounding municipalities. The overall signage package took into consideration of size of Penn Valley Park, the historic nature of the park and its activities, the network of streets and trails in the park and the speeds at which vehicles travel thru the park. The signage package consists of iconic, primary, secondary, destination, wayfinding and park courtesies signage. The goal of the Penn Valley Park signage plan was brand Penn Valley Park.
Parks and Recreation working with a project team consisted of Gould Evans, Vireo and Workshop developed a master signage program for Penn Valley Park. The design professionals were designing improvements at Liberty Memorial and Penn Valley Drive & Lake.
The project team worked with the steering committee, comprised of park stakeholders from Penn Valley Park Conservancy and other representatives from activities in the park, including Liberty Memorial, Just Off Broadway Theatre, Off Leash Area and the baseball fields, to develop signage package for the entire park.
The development of the Penn Valley Park signage master plan ran concurrently with the development of the Swope Park signage master plan. Both parks are regional parks and draw visitors from the metro area. However, many the visitors do not recognize the fact that they are in either Swope Park or Penn Valley Park. Both projects involved steering committees that stressed the need to brand each individual park. Penn Valley Park is a smaller park and despite its terrain a pedestrian friendly park. This allows for the signage in Penn Valley Park to be at a slightly smaller scale.
The Penn Valley Park signage plan was approved by the Penn Valley Park Conservancy, Just Off Broadway Theatre Association and National World War I Museum’s Building & Grounds committee.
Parks and Recreation selected Star Signs as the contractor for the installation of the wayfinding signage. The wayfinding sign chosen today, captures those pedestrians and drivers coming up Kessler Road from Union Station and directs them to Liberty Memorial, National World War I Museum, the Money Museum, and the dog park.
Overall three types of signage are being installed in Penn Valley Park.
Wayfinding – both pedestrian (over 20 signs) & vehicular (20 signs) some are single sided, others are double sided
Destination (8) – signs for individual activity/arrival points. For example, the one behind you (the audience) is for Pioneer Mother. In addition to the destination name, these signs will include address for their subsequent location/parking lot.
Secondary Entry Signage (2) – these will be stone columns placed at secondary entrances around the park that announce the arrival to Penn Valley Park and include a brief list of destination points near that entrance.