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Steel animal sculptures are displayed during a news conference at P&S Metals Thursday, June 23, 2011. The sculptures, which each take about 120 hours to create and are coated with a special aging treatment, will be erected along I-15 as part of landscape and aesthetic improvements in the I-15 South Design-Build project.
By Kyle B. Hansen (contact) 
Thursday, June 23, 2011 | 2:06 p.m.
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The Nevada Department of Transportation has a warning for motorists: Beware of giant animals near a Las Vegas freeway beginning Friday.
It’s not the filming of a Hollywood movie or a science experience gone wrong; it’s freeway art. Crews are expected to begin installing giant animal sculptures along the sides of Interstate 15 in the southern valley early Friday morning.
By the time the freeway project is done late next summer, there will be 40 animal statues between Blue Diamond Road and Tropicana Avenue.
The sculptures are made of metal, cut to give the figures a three-dimensional appearance. They range from 9-feet to 11-feet tall and include horses, burros, big horn sheep and coyotes.
The animal statues are the most prominent part of the landscaping and aesthetics portion of the $246 million I-15 Design-Build Project South, which is widening the freeway.
In addition to the beginning of statue instillation, which will continue intermittently for several months, some of the new access roads along the sides of the freeway are scheduled to open Friday morning.
The Transportation Department is warning motorists to be aware of the changes so they’re not surprised as exits move and statues attract drivers’ eyes.
The first access road to open will be the northbound road from before Blue Diamond to the Las Vegas Beltway interchange. The road will allow traffic entering and exiting the freeway to use separate lanes from traffic continuing on I-15.
The roads should help traffic flow more smoothly, both as construction continues and once the project is done, said Luke Rollins, an assistant resident engineer for the department.
But first there may be some confusion for motorists. “They’re going to be well-marked, but it’s going to be a learning curve, just like on any new aspect of a project,” Rollins said.
Officials also expect the new ramp from Blue Diamond Road to the interstate to open next week, about five months ahead of schedule, Rollins said.
The Blue Diamond Road area will also be where the first set of animal statues will be installed.
Federal government guidelines suggest between 1 percent and 3 percent of a road project’s cost go to landscaping and aesthetics.
The Transportation Department wanted to make sure I-15 looked nice since it was the entry to Las Vegas for visitors from California, spokeswoman Michelle Booth said.
But there are also practical reasons for the landscaping. “We have to put in some landscaping or else we have dust and mudslide problems,” she said.
The landscaping includes thousands of plants that are native to southern Nevada, including many that have been rescued from other construction areas and will be relocated to the project area by Soil-Tech, a local company.
The company will be planting 153 Joshua Trees along the freeway, and many of them are hundreds of years old.
The landscape is designed to be drought-tolerant and low maintenance.
“We’ll water for six months to a year, then once they take hold we let them on their own and Mother Nature provides enough water for them,” said Brian Esposito, the vice president of business development for Soil-Tech. “They’re pretty hardy, they’re used to living in the desert.”
The animal statues are also low maintenance; “They don’t need watering either,” joked Gene Perry, the owner of P&S Metals, which is manufacturing the art and the support beams for signs used on the project.
If someone puts graffiti on the animals, the paint can just be brushed off, Perry said. “It’s a very simple cleaning process.”
Each statue, which weighs about a ton, will be bolted to a concrete pad.
The project was a lifesaver for the local metal company, which has suffered in the recession, Perry said. They hired about 12 extra people to work at the shop, bringing the staff to more than 40 members.
Not many places in Las Vegas are able to do this type of metal work, Perry said. “If we hadn’t taken this job it would have been done in California or Utah.”
But the shop hasn’t done much artwork; most of their work is on structural supports and elements not usually seen by the public.
“This is the first time we’ve had something we can look at and say ‘isn’t that nice,’ ” Perry said.
Plus, he thinks the statues will become popular with locals and tourists, especially the four big horn sheep that will be installed near Russell Road.
“I predict four of these will be the most common thing photographed in this town other than our welcome sign,” Perry said.
Will we get tickets for looking at the "art" while driving since it's a distraction?
who funded this?
How long until these peices of art are stolen, cut up and sold to scrap metal shops around the valley? with a price tag im sure of over the 20000$ turtles currently sitting in the spaghetti bowl I just dont see whats the point of aged metal beasts.
I thought we had a budget problem?
~ $half million just for steel statues?
(120 hours x $100 shop rate x 40 statues)
Do they realize the people coming to Vegas could careless about these statues.
I foresee people crashing into the "art"
it's a very nice work of Art and I will visit them, but their skills could have been used for other projects.
Okay I feel I have to say this. Why spend 248 million dollars on so called art? What about the homeless, the about to be homeless, the unemployed and all of the rest of the people of Nevada who need help? This is probably another Reid inspired money spending activities that probably employed about 10 people who already had jobs. If you can't afford the price of a gallon of gas who's going to see the art and besides who cares. I would much rather have seen banquet tables set up along Freemont Street to feed the hungry than a bunch of supposed art lining I-15.
I guess I am just another bleeding heart whatever to think that people are more important than things.
When your budget is tight, do you go out and by "art"? How many teacher salaries could have been spared for these?
Typo correction: When your budget is tight, do you go out and *buy* "art"? How many teacher salaries could have been spared for these?
I would have rather seen the money spent on our children being educated. What a waste. Oh this has probably improved our economy.
Geez...I guess we can expect more ridiculous lane closures while these ugly things get installed? Maybe NDOT should worry more about getting this project done on time. Last I saw, it was supposed to be March 2012. Now the article says late summer. What a nightmare.
While I'm happy for the company that got this "art" work, I noticed the article doesn't state how much was actually spent on each sculpture.
I got a feeling if the amount was printed a firestorm of controversy would be started.
It's not true. $248 million is for the entire freeway interchange work.
I took personal offense to all the negative remarks about the steel sculptures! I work for the company that designed these. In fact I was the main designer on these. You can say this and that and blah blah blah but this project that my company landed saved my job 2 years ago. It wasn't just these steel sculptures that we designed. We did the entire aesthtics for the newly built I-15 south. Did you see those panels on the onramps, off ramps and bridges. Did you see the decorative bridge rails or the landscape planting that just went up? Well, we designed all that! I don't hear anybody saying anything about that. All I can say is, it's easy for you to say it's a waste of money when your livihood isn't at stake. If it wasn't for this project I would be unemployed right now. I feel very grateful that this kept food in my mouth.
FYI:
Most of this project is funded by your gas taxes and federal highway dollars. Everytime you pay for gas at the pump it goes to road improvements. This project isn't all about aesthtics. In fact it's only 2% of the total budget of the project! This project was conceived by NDOT because the highway needed to be improve and as mandated by state law 2% of the project budget has to go towards aesthtics improvements. The money can't be easily re-allocated towards other things such as education. You use the money for this or lose it.
In a time of such financial distress and the worst recession to hit las vegas to date I am glad to see we at least have our heads on straight and our priorities in order when it comes to how we are going to dig our way out of it.
As a state employee I am also tickled to death to know that I have to take a paycut, a freeze on merit increases, and benefit cuts but damned if we can't afford these metal animal sculptures to decorate our roadsides.
And people wonder what gives birth to a Timothy Mcveigh type situation...
@olbuddy:
This project was conceived well before the recession.
Wow, please fire whoever signed off on this project...
Not only are they useless but they are incredibly ugly...
All you that troll these message boards looking for negative things to say about positive things in life and around Las Vegas need to get a life. Seriously, do you have families to tend to?
I am stunned they were Made in the USA. I thought we only made peeps and bad movies these days.
I wonder if the $246M was part of the Recovery Act funds? Anyway the art work was a small % of the overall amount spent, and I think it's nice to add a bit of landscaping and art to the freeways. The money is being paid to people who live and work here, what the heck is wrong with that?
Better that we get a bunch of steel animals then a scale model of Noah's Ark.
@LasVegas2011
It just didn'tsave my job but it saved at least a thousand other jobs directly related to this project.
I understand your point but how else are these dollars going to get spent when it's been allocated for this. It's been paid for already by YOUR gas taxes. The state of county didn't have to get a building bond for this.
Yes kids, I realize you are tired of eating soup and spaghetti 'os' for dinner and would like to have meat once in a while, but I have been saving for my new bowling ball for some time and it is not coming out of this weeks food allowance, so quit complaining.
FYI:
Only 3 million was allocated towards aesthetics. It's a small amount compared to the total of the entire 1-15 highway improvements which is somewhere like 250-300 million.
I guess many of you still even think improving the roads and highways (widening, adding offramps etc.) are still a waste of money even though it benefits both you and I.
Whatever! I'm done trying to prove my point to all of you smart Alecs that think you have the solution to every problem and think everything government does is a waste of money. Get a life!
Yes widening roads and adding off ramps every two years is a MAJOR waste of money. The money is spent because the folks running things make cash from sprawl.
They take OUR money and basically build roads so a developer can then build more houses which depresses existing inventory, i.e YOUR home value. They never address real issues like a defective I15 at sahara. A roadway where hills create blind spots and accidents happen daily.
Heck when do they address the onramp from eastbound Trop to southbound I15? there is an accident there about daily.
There is a major street not a block from my house that should have been repaved 5 years ago. This street also turns into a river whenever it rains. When does this work get done? Well never unless some developer close by decides to "do something" and stimulates the "work".
Roadwork in Clark County is a business. It has little to do with anything but making a handful of folks very rich.
This is Obama's Stimulus in action. We borrow money from the Chinese to pay for freeway eyesores.
@Mikegino and stephenrblv:
Dude, didn't you read any of the previous comments this isn't a part of Obama's stimulus. It is federal highway dollars that were allocated for Nevada long before Obama. Dude, again the project isn't about aesthetics it's about improving the highway between Silverado and Trop.
As far as improving the roads it has to be done. If Las Vegas had never widened 1-15 20 years ago and even to the present imagine how congested the highway would be! As far as work be done on Trop it's a part of this project. Do you expect to work for free...that's why people have to get paid to do stuff.
Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and look at the facts and form you own opinion. I'm no liberal but in fact pretty conservative myself but I don't listen to that garbage.
@iamdjrebel Refrain from lecturing me without addressing a single item mentioned and then comparing me to some paid propagandist like Rush Bimbo. Address the points made.
There is no Requirement I15 HAS TO BE widened. There is also little evidence I15 would be a parking lot if the thing had not been widened 4-5 times in the last 20 years. Most of the delays I have seen in that time have to do with construction, not inherent demand or lack of space.
Most people are so brainwashed with this Sprawl mentality, they cannot see WHY this destructive mentality is promoted as being "normal". We have it for one simple fact...we live in a Debt Based Monetary Paradigm. Thus "growth", i.e "inflation" across all sectors is a mandatory requirement needed to generate activity to pay usury required by the monetary system. Very little has any bearing whatsoever in the "real world".
Why do we need ANY more development here? We don't, but we do because the system is rotten. This system literally demands "growth". This has little if anything to do with "progress", sustainability, or what is appropriate.
Things like iron donkey statutes along a highway CON the public into believing this debt based required sprawl is "natural", it isn't.
If the highway fund has extra money then it ought be refunded to taxpayers. Not used to employ people who should be doing productive work not simply wielding to pay their mortgage.
You can have the horses, the big horn sheep and the coyotes, I want to see the burrow.
rebel: any form of continued government waste is extremely consistent with Obama's Stimulus. Besides, Jeff Lebowski is the only real "Dude."
The total project cost at time of award is $246.5 Million. The landscape budget is $7.2 Million. The money came from LVCVA (approx. $224.5 Million) and Clark County (approx. $22 Million). This money could not have been used for anything else due to the regulations set forth by the politicians that we all elected, at ALL levels of government. Peak employment on this project is 300+ people. These are the facts.
@ all you Limbaughist
Whatever I'm done. Get a life dudes! Quit wasting your time trolling these comment boards. I'm done. You will belive what you will.
@ stephenrblv
I see you hate the governement because all your comments are directed towards it. If you want to make a change quit commenting on these boards and run for public office instead of being an armchair politcal wannbe jock.
@ iamdjrebel
you are a moron all around. and just because it was supposedly conceived before the recession (highly doubtful, or perhaps you have no clue when the recession started,) doesn't mean we still have to okay its completion and pay for this nonsense.
it's ugly, wasteful, and a laughing stock.