Nine months after the Downtown Investment Authority board gave a green light, new signs for CSX are in permitting review at a project cost of $2.4 million.
The city is reviewing permit applications for four signs – two each facing north and south – on top of the 17-story railroad company’s headquarters at 500 Water St., along the Northbank of the St. Johns River.
Each sign carries a job cost of $600,000. Jacksonville-based Taylor Sign & Design Inc. is the contractor.
The headquarters was built in 1962 for Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, the predecessor of CSX.
Jacksonville-based Taylor Sign & Design Inc. is proposing two high-rise signs of 1,656 square feet each.
Each of the two sides will feature the CSX name, at 828 square feet in size, and a railroad car, at 502 square feet. That totals 1,330 square feet.
CSX spokesperson Bryan Tucker said Sept. 23 that the current signs will start to be removed in November and new signs should be installed by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
The current signage is “How tomorrow moves” with “CSX” in brackets with two dots – resembling wheels – below.
Tucker, vice president of stakeholder engagement and sustainability, said Taylor Sign & Design will remove the existing signs. He referenced a traditional method, such as lowering the letters to the ground by a rope system.
He said CSX will not use a helicopter, which was engaged to carry the Wells Fargo name, letter by letter, from the tower it had anchored.
The DIA board voted Jan. 17 to allow CSX Corp. to replace the existing signs with programmable LED signage.
The approved signs, which are in the shape of company’s initials and a CSX train, are digital boards featuring technology that allows them to change colors and display moving images.
The Downtown Development Review Board approved CSX’s request in November 2023 but capped the size of the signage at 1,201 square feet – the size of the current signs. CSX had requested 1,656 square feet for the upgraded signage.
The company appealed the decision, prompting a discussion with DIA staff that led to a compromise solution allowing the signage to be up to 1,330 square feet.
Other conditions that were approved by DDRB staff remained intact, including that the signs are to remain static unless they’re coordinated to light and sound shows being planned for Friendship Fountain and the exterior of the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts.
The DIA board approved the compromise solution unanimously.
Tucker told the board the company appreciated the DDRB’s approval and the company tried to redesign the signs to conform with its conditions.
He said the extra square footage was needed to make the CSX letters and train shapes scale properly with each other.