With news earlier this week the town will be giving the water tower a $550,000 makeover in 2008, one idea to help pay for it could be selling ad space on it.
Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown said yesterday that while the town is applying for a provincial grant to repaint and fix the tower, having one or more businesses advertise on the east or west sides of it could be another means of helping pay for the work.
“If we’re going to paint the exterior, is there a client in town that would be interested in buying advertising, paying for the paint, and having their name up there for 10 years or whatever,” wondered Brown.
“I thought it could be a way of offsetting some of the costs.
“All we’ve got is the Canadian flag and ‘Fort Frances’ on it,” he added. “Could there be other things on the tower that someone will buy and pay a rental fee, and we make money off it? I don’t know.
“It’s just an idea right now, and I haven’t discussed it with council or anything,” Brown continued. “But I wanted to put it out there because I thought it’s a pretty good place to advertise off of.
“It gets everyone’s eye. It’s a huge area.”
Brown said he’s seen similar advertising elsewhere, and figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least entertain the possibility to pique potential interest here.
Mayor Roy Avis confirmed yesterday the idea has not been brought before council—and definitely would bear some discussion before any decisions were made.
“There might be a reasoning why we can or why we can’t use it [the water tower] for advertising,” he noted, adding that in the past, the water tower has been the site for various antennae, but never actual advertising.
“I think it would warrant some discussion. If you had a sign put on that tower and the business went broke, who would have to pay to take it off?” added Mayor Avis.
“It would be a very interesting discussion.”
The water tower, which was built in 1985, was last painted in 1996.
Fort Frances Times
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