In Encinitas, banners going up and building coming down

By: ADAM KAYE - Staff Writer
| Wednesday, January 23, 2008 12:03 AM PST ∞

ENCINITAS -- The banners are going up and the old metal building is coming down.

For the ninth straight year, colorful banners will soon enliven roadsides in Encinitas as part of an annual program to beautify the coastal city and raise money for charities.

The banners, 101 of them, will be unveiled at 2 p.m. Sunday at 687 S. Coast Highway 101, in a sheet-metal building that's gray like a battleship -- and almost as big.

Sunday's unveiling will be one of the last public gatherings in the cavernous structure before it is dismantled and moved to Mexico. A residential and commercial complex is planned at the property, in the heart of downtown Encinitas.

Well before volunteers begin unbolting the building, which originally housed the Coast Dispatch newspaper, roadside banners will hang from its steel beams during a silent auction with music and refreshments Sunday.

In early February, workers will hang the banners from streetlights along the coast highway.

Each of the banners is for sale. Silent bids begin at $150.

As in previous years, bidding will continue online as long as the banners remain on display, through mid-May. The Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association will post images of each banner on its Web site, www.encinitas101.com, where browsers also can place bids.

The banner program, called Arts Alive, concludes May 18 with a live auction at Cardiff Towne Center.

The program began in Encinitas in 2000. Since then it has spread to Oceanside, Solana Beach and other cities because of its success. The colorful, acrylic creations stand 5 to 7 feet tall.

On Tuesday, Ashley Burruss and Heather Gibb brought banners they had painted to the metal building, where Danny Salzhandler of the 101 Artists Colony unfurled the paintings for a look-see.

Burruss, a Cardiff resident, drew inspiration from her own neighborhood. Villa Laguna, the name of both her parents' home and her painting, shows a view across San Elijo Lagoon, with fuzzy buildings silhouetted against an orange sky.

The banner shows how things looked from her parents' yard during the October wildfires, Burruss said.

Gibb, a Solana Beach resident, painted a dragon inspired by Tibetan and Balinese art. The dragon holds a fireball.

"I'm always interested in different cultures around the world," Gibb said, "their belief systems and how they view reality."

In addition to the banner unveiling, organizers are billing Sunday's gathering as "the last hurrah" for the old gray building.

Through the assistance of the nonprofit Border Evangelism and Mercy Ministries, volunteers are set to dismantle the building in March and ship it to Mexicali, Mexico. There it will become a new home for the Mision Dios Soberano, (Soveriegn God Mission), a five-year old congregation in the border city near Calexico.

The congregation will be getting space for more than just a church in the building, said Morgan Roe, coordinator of Mercy Ministries.

"They have wanted recreational facilities for youth, classrooms and space for counseling and job training, English classes and homework help," Roe said. "This building is going to give them lots of room to serve the community."

The building must be removed to make way for Pacific Station, which will bring a grocery store, shops, restaurants and housing to the property on South Coast Highway 101 at F Street.

Construction is expected to begin in March or April, developer John DeWald said Tuesday.

He said he was happy that the building will be put to good use.

"We've been looking for some place for the building to go," he said. "It's kind of a waste to send it to the dump or the scrap-metal heap. It all unscrews and unbolts."

-- Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 901-4074 or akaye@nctimes.com.

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