Councilmembers vote to remove Luminous Light Masts at Ross’s Landing

UPDATE:

The Chattanooga City Council voted to permanently remove the Luminous Light masts at the pier on Ross’s Landing.

Councilmembers approved the resolution for the lights’ removal on Tuesday evening.

City leaders were concerned about the deformation of some of the masts due to wind damage from storms, according to the Public Art Commission.

They also believed the masts may succumb to high winds in the future.

City officials said they will have crews inspect the pier with a lighting engineer prior to their removal. This will be to ensure the remaining pier lighting will be sufficient for nighttime public use.

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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Chattanooga officials are debating whether to remove the Luminous Light Masts on the pier at Ross’s Landing.

Various city officials are recommending deaccession of the light structures.  The Arts, Culture and Creative Economy/Public Art Commission staff, city risk management and the city engineer all recommend their removal.

Luminous Light Masts

These officials reviewed the structures and determined they do not meet current design standards. To fix these issues, it would cost more than $200,000.

Officials believe it is more cost effective to go ahead and remove the lights instead, and that they create a safety hazard.

James Carpenter created the lights for Chattanooga back in 2005, costing more than $650,000.

“In order to get it back up to current wind codes, there would have to be a pretty significant cost to do that. Not only to fix the damage, but then also get up to standards. It just wasn’t really a thing that was cost effective, so it’s better to go ahead and take it down, be proactive and that way in case any other storms come through, we don’t find out the hard way,” said Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors spokesperson Brian Smith.

The Chattanooga City Council will vote on the removal of the Luminous Light Masts on Tuesday, November 14, at 3:30 p.m.