Danville is nearing completion of a “wayfinding master plan” that will guide an overhaul of directional signs around the city. Consultant John Carman unveiled a full-size example of the sign design the master plan is expected to recommend at a final public meeting on the topic Tuesday night. And the community members and local officials in attendance also reviewed a nearly complete list of dozens of sign locations and what the signs will point to.

“Our goal here is really to create a sense of place — a sense of place that you all can identify,” Carman said.

Based on input from members of the public, Carman’s company is recommending a “traditional” design for Danville’s wayfinding signs. The signs would be curved on top, with a decorative “D” borrowed from the recent branding study for Danville and Boyle County completed by the Convention and Visitors Bureau. They would be black with white text and minimal coloring.

Jennifer Kirchner, director for the CVB, asked Carman about the absence of color coding on the signs, which had been an option discussed previously.

“The feedback that we were hearing (from the public) was that that was maybe a little bit confusing to people,” Carman said. “… Based on the feedback and the comments we were hearing, we pulled away from the whole color-coding system.”

Carman’s work has identified more than a dozen “decision points” in two zones around Danville — an outer zone focused mainly on traffic around the bypass and a downtown zone focused on vehicle and foot traffic.

At each decision point, there are one to four signs for traffic coming from different directions. Most signs list three destinations or areas, along with a directional arrow.

Destinations in the outer area listed in the preliminary plan include Centre College, the Boyle County Industrial Park, Perryville Battlefield, Constitution Square, Wilderness Trail Distillery, Millennium Park, Pioneer Playhouse, the Great American Dollhouse Museum, Admiral Stadium, Kentucky School for the Deaf and downtown Danville.

Other destinations such as the Norton Center appear on proposed signs closer in to downtown. The plan on display Tuesday night also included seven locations downtown for signs pointing to the city parking garage and three “information kiosks.”

In addition to correcting a handful of directional arrows, attendees at the meeting made the following comments or suggestions:

• Admiral Stadium is listed on several signs, but Boyle County High School is not;

• Kentucky School for the Deaf should be listed on more signs; and

• West T. Hill Community Theatre does not appear at all on the sign plan presented Tuesday.

“Just one sign for West T. Hill,” community member Mary Beth Touchstone said. “Just one sign in the entire city is all we’re asking for.”

Carman said his company would review the requests for adding Boyle County High School, KSD and West T. Hill prior to finalizing the master plan.

“We’ll look at that,” he told Touchstone of her request for West T. Hill. “I promise you we’ll take another look at that.”

Lori Kagan-Moore, owner of the Great American Dollhouse Museum, asked about cost to purchase and install all the new signs.

“They’re beautiful, they’re huge,” she said. “They must be kind of expensive.”

Carman said a summary of an expected budget for the project will be included with the final master plan document. His company is also wrapping up a similar wayfinding master plan for the City of Frankfort, which is expected to cost between $400,000 and $500,000, though 80 percent of that cost is expected to be grant-funded, he said.

Carman said he has presented what’s been done on Danville’s master plan so far to regional Kentucky Transportation Cabinet officials and they “seemed to be very pleased” with it.

“I think what really was the selling point on it was the fact that we had gone through such a good, comprehensive process of getting community input,” he said.

Danville City Manager Ron Scott said once Carman completes modifications asked for Tuesday night and provides the city with an updated document showing the proposed sign locations and destinations, that information will be posted on the city’s website, danvilleky.org, for the public to view.