Town Council Work Session - Jul 27, 2026

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Leesburg Town Council 2h 32m 3 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Kelly Burk 1:57

Let me open tonight's town hall meeting of July 27th, 2026. Are we ready gentlemen?

What options did staff present for updating Leesburg’s wayfinding signage?

Kelly Burk 2:11

All right, the first item for discussion tonight is the wayfinding signage.

Doug Wagner 2:22

Get to the beginning of my presentation here. Good afternoon, members of council, Madam Mayor. I'm Doug Wagner. I'm the Deputy Director of Capital Projects here this evening to discuss some options with the current wayfinding system in town. The original, the system that's in place right now was designed in 2002, implemented in 2003. You can see the signs, what the current design looks like. The components of a waste finding system are the large trailblazer signs, small trailblazer signs, and then parking directional signs with some entry monument signs as well. 2003, 23 years ago, since then a lot has changed in Leesburg. You can see from these couple of examples, a lot of our existing signs are worn, they're damaged, some have incorrect information.

Doug Wagner 3:23

We already talked about the first three items. In 2024, we reengaged Frazier and Associates, who was the designer of the original wayfinding system, to take a look at options for refreshing or revising the current system to take care of outdated signs, damaged signs. And in July of 2025, Frazier gave their findings to council. Frazier's recommendation is shown as option one in your packet, and attachment one shows all the locations, is to refresh the sign designs and add new signs for new destinations, replacing a total of about 74 signs and adding signs. using our sign contract or current numbers, we've estimated that that option will be almost $529,000 to 74 signs to essentially, this is the refreshed design.

Doug Wagner 4:28

Very similar, color scheme is a little bit different, but very similar to our previous design. And this is a quick simulation of what the new signs would look like downtown. This is a map of what I'll be showing as option three, not option one. Option one is shown in the wayfinding study attachment one. Staff did prepare two additional options for council's discussion. First would be option two would basically take the current sign designs as they are and replace worn signs, damaged signs, or signs that have incorrect information, approximately 26 signs. We estimate that option would cost almost $171,000. And then option three would be to replace only the downtown signs. So take Frazier's recommendations, but only for the downtown signs.

Doug Wagner 5:27

And these would be the new sign design. Economic Development Commission voted in favor of option three on May 14th.

How much will each wayfinding signage option cost and which areas would be prioritized?

Doug Wagner 5:36

And short presentation, answer any questions or have any discussion. Yes, ma'am.

Kelly Burk 5:43

Thank you. Anybody have any questions on this? Mr. Steinberg?

Neil Steinberg 5:48

Yes, thanks. Thanks, Doug. So option three would just replace the downtown signs, but what about damaged signs outside of the downtown?

Doug Wagner 5:58

We would take all of the signs down, damaged signs, all of the old signs, and put just new signs up in the downtown only.

Neil Steinberg 6:09

So you're saying we would eliminate the signage outside of the downtown area?

Doug Wagner 6:14

Yes, it's only in historic downtown.

Neil Steinberg 6:15

What would we expect to be the outcome of that in the long term?

Doug Wagner 6:20

It really just gives direction for people coming into the downtown area and focuses on the downtown area. So areas like the airport, there'd be areas that wouldn't be signed as they are today.

Neil Steinberg 6:36

But at some point we chose to do that signage, I would assume that there was a reason we thought it was a good idea at the time.

Town Attorney / Legal Counsel 6:45

With the 2002 design, it was recommended in the 2002 design to have all of the signs. Okay.

Neil Steinberg 6:54

And has that logic either by staff or by our consultant changed in terms of the usefulness of the signage?

Doug Wagner 7:10

Good evening, sir. The focus at that time was to look at option three, replace and start with the downtown area. And then as funding would be available and out in years, look at moving out from there. So it was never an intent to just get rid of the other signs. As Doug had mentioned, it was get rid of the ones that were there that were incorrect or in very bad shape. start with the new design downtown, but instead of trying to do the entire town, start with downtown and then move out from there on an annual basis or however that was put into our budget.