Bollards are rising on Perry’s stretch of the Raccoon River Valley Trail (RRVT) as the community participates in the trail-wide, themed public-art project by RDG Planning and Design Dahlquist Art Studio.
The Perry City Council approved funding last summer for the public-art design, which is intended to create a “common theme” and a “cultural corridor” for the 89-mile RRVT. The design’s motifs derive from the Waukee trailhead of the RRVT and are repeated in many of the trail’s 13 towns.
The Perry City Council approved the purchase of one lighted, single-column erection at the Trailhead in Caboose Park at a cost of $22,145 and one unlighted, single-column erection along the trail near Iowa Highway 141 for $20,085. The total project cost is $42,230.
The city’s share in the cost was $11,630, with the balance provided by grants from Iowa Great Places for $20,600, the Perry Rotary Club for $1,000, the Waukee Rotary Club for $5,000, the Bock Family Foundation for $2,500 and 100+ People for Perry for $1,500.
Jim Miller, a strong supporter of the Waukee Trailhead artwork and a member of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association and the Dallas County Conservation Board, urged to council to participate in the trail-wide project.
“Right from the beginning,” Miller said, “the idea was that whatever’s done in Waukee should be a design that’s portable to the other communities with the thought that it’s a trail project and not just a Waukee project.”
The Waukee trailhead project, called “In the Shadow of the Rails,” is 350 feet long and has 34 lighted-at-night columns that stand 16 feet high and are topped by parallel steel rails. The total cost for the Waukee installation was about $1.1 million.
