Vision 2020’s Gateway to Austin Committee and the city of Austin will get to work putting up new signage throughout the community after the Austin City Council approved moving forward on the issue Monday.

The committee will put together bids to add signs throughout the city that would keep with the theme and style of the group’s planned future bridge replacement projects along Interstate 90.

That will also include new Welcome to Austin signs installed closer to the Oakland Avenue and 28th Street Northeast exits along Interstate 90, as well as a sign on U.S. Highway 218, which replaces the one on Jay C. Hormel Nature Center property.

“We want a quality sign that will last a long, long time,” John Gray, chairman of the Gateway to Austin Committee, told the council Monday.

A subcommittee has worked on a proposal to put up new signage throughout town since last year, which includes sign renderings and a list of nonprofits and attractions to feature. No businesses will be featured in the new signage, however, with the exception of the Spam Museum.

The new welcome signs could cost between $120,000 to $130,000 after all the brick work, foundation, lighting and more are complete at all three sites. That’s still lower than the $150,000 the city put aside for the project last year.

Yet the city is only expected to pay a quarter of the welcome sign costs, which means the city will pay less than the projected $37,500 if Vision 2020 volunteers can get the estimated bid for the project.

The city won’t pay anything for the signs within town, but will be expected to maintain them.

While Vision 2020 is looking forward to the new signs, Gray said other Gateway to Austin projects are slow in coming together. There’s no word on when a proposed Visitor Center will come together after the committee’s previous location, just south of Hy-Vee, was scrapped when the city of Austin couldn’t close a deal to purchase the Oak Park Mall as part of a development project.

In addition, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has been slow to meet with volunteers on potential redesigns for the city’s interstate bridges, almost all of which will be replaced over the next few years.

Gray said volunteers will begin monthly meetings with MnDOT personnel in August, but bridge replacements may start as late as 2021 even if everything comes together, despite the group’s final draft of proposed style and theme changes to match the city.

“We’re stuck,” he said.

Still, Gray and other volunteers are looking forward to get the ball rolling on the city’s sign projects over the next few months.