COUER D’ALENE, Idaho – The city of Coeur d’Alene is working to make the $100,000 art piece at McEuen Park all that it was supposed to be.
The piece is called ‘Under the Rainbow’ and was supposed to light up the park. Unfortunately, that has not been happening recently, but the city is working on a fix.
“Great idea, poor execution,” said Paul Fleschner.
Fleschner has seen it all when it comes to the long story that has been the revamp of the McEuen Park in Downtown Coeur d’Alene.
“It’s a really cool idea in theory, but it doesn’t really pay off. Unfortunately, I don’t know if they need brighter lights or a different light array or something. Because right now, it just kind of looks like a bunch of wires,” said Fleschner.
In 2015, the city told 2 On Your Side it was talking about making some improvements to make the piece live up to its name.
KREM 2 checked in with the city and found that some improvements have already been made.
LED lights have been placed at the base of the cables. The hope is they will light up the cables even more.
A city representative said that the Arts Commission has also been working with the same company that provides design wraps for city cars to create another improvement.
The plan is to add a PVC sleeve over each wire using the same reflective material you find on a police car. That is expected to help illuminate the cables even more.
“I think that it’s great that they’re being proactive to make it better. I think it has the potential to be a really cool light fixture. It just needs some tweaking,” Fleschner said.
The new spot lights are installed, but not operational just yet. The city is waiting for the weather to improve before they hook up the lights and test them out.