Beyond be-leaf: What do you think of Fresno Yosemite Airport's $1 million trees?
The Fresno City Council voted to cough up $1 million to buy replications of Sequoia trees to decorate the Fresno Yosemite International Airport. My first thought was, huh? We grow everything here. So just cut a skylight and plant some trees in there already!
OK, on further reflection, I get it -- not realistic. Pretty tough to create a perfect indoor environment for a sequoia.
The firm that is creating the "trees" for the airport -- think of them as public art creating a sense of place -- is called NatureMaker Steel Art Trees. Take a look at took at the firm's Web site and their work is quite impressive. Look at some of their installations by clicking here.
Take a peek at the plans for the Fresno Airport installation by clicking here.
What do you think?
Comments
Really? 1 million dollars for fake trees inside of an airport? Really?
How about investing in better public transportation.
Fake trees inside of an airport seems like a total waste of money.
Posted by: John Zacharias | February 28, 2008 4:42 AM
Have the local school kids make trees out of paper mashe.
Fresno Bee donates used paper, get some flour, and chicken wire.
Kids have fun, community involvement, save a million dollars.
Posted by: Rich | February 28, 2008 8:40 AM
Fake trees are stupid. When people arrive or depart they want to see friends and family not fake trees. They need to fix the parking and put the rental cars elsewhere
Posted by: Jackie Krage | February 28, 2008 1:33 PM
Fake trees that do not look fake inside buildings are impressive. My company maintained downtown office buildings interior landscape in San Diego so we dealt mainly with palms.The aesthetic effect is something you can't appreciate until you experience it.That was private money though.San Diego through so much money at it's airport for study after study and then the big remodel that $1 Million seems like chump change.It's not though.Enhancement is nice but first things first...fix something that needs fixing.There's a pretty long list isn't there?
Posted by: Brian Murray | February 28, 2008 9:15 PM
If you want to impress visitors, have volunteers meet the people on arrival and say "Welcome to Fresno, here's a $10 bill to help you enjoy your visit". There would be 100,000 families who would remember their visit.
If you would have taken the money wasted on the City Hall a few years ago and done the same thing, We would have everybody visiting Fresno by now "the city where they give away money"
And the money in turn would likely be spent in Fresno, investing in the community.
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OK, finished with the sarcasm now.
Fake trees. That's a much better way to pack the visitors in. Visitors are much more impressed in a community that has the money to waste on public edifices. They'll all decide to spend their future vacations in Fresno to see City Hall and the fake trees. I'm sure we will have groves of people visiting after we get these trees.
"Where will we vacation this year? Not Disneyland Daddy, I want to go to that City with the fake trees."
Fake trees. Brilliant, I like it!
Posted by: Dave | March 2, 2008 4:38 PM
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$1M??
More like $2M when its done. (You can't forget the 1,000+ sqft or so of building area @ $400/sf plus the intangibles that you never hear about, like the cost of added security to keep the new grizzly bears in this little area).
And did you notice that the project is phased. $300k now and $725K next year when (if) money is available. Of course, If the money isn't available next year, I'm sure the vendor will return the first $300k that he already spent.
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Posted by: Dave | March 2, 2008 5:03 PM
It is highly unlikely that people are coming to visit our airport. They just have to get here some how. An airport with fack trees would not entice me to come back. I would be traveling to see friends or family not the airport. I akmb all for security too but it is so impersonal to have to sat goodbye or greet someone by waiting for them at the end of a long hallway.
Posted by: Jackie Krage | March 4, 2008 2:43 PM