Highland City Council votes to upgrade holiday decorations with LED lighting

Part of Highland’s project to renovate downtown will come with extra-sparkly lights this fall.

The streetscape renovation currently underway will require new holiday decorations that hang on the light poles, according to City Manager Chris Conrad. So the city council has voted to sell the older decorations, and to buy new ones with LED lighting that use less electricity and need less maintenance, he said.

But with this comes a new opportunity for businesses around the square, some of whom are in the process of updating their facades as the entire business district gets an upgrade.

Conrad said the businesses can buy lights at $50 a strand — which is the city’s cost — and pay for the electricity, and the city will provide the labor to put them in place.

“Our guys with the bucket truck will install and maintain them,” he said. “This will give us some uniformity across the square.”

Conrad said they haven’t started signing up businesses yet as the council just approved the program last week.

“But we have had some businesses ask already if we were going to put the lights back up,” he said. “Christmas comes a lot sooner than you think.”

As to the light pole decorations, the city is still getting bids on designs, but all will be LED lighting.

This comes after the city recently approved a facade improvement program to be partially reimbursed for improvements to a business exterior, including awnings and doors. The city allocated $50,000 for the first run of the program, which has already seen some projects approved.

The streetscape project is transforming parts of the downtown area, with new curbs, wider sidewalks and “period” lighting with old-fashioned streetlamp, new signage, painting and new trees planted. The overall project is estimated at $1.65 million, with most of it covered by a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation.