Fruita’s familiar COOP Tower is wearing two new banners, and visitors can look for community-drawn flowers among the artwork. The City of Fruita unveiled the banners at Mulberry Plaza on Friday, September 25. Artist Andrea Downs designed both sides of the retired grain silo: one looks toward the area’s outdoor landscape, while the other folds flower drawings made by residents into a familiar downtown dinosaur.
The east-facing banner shows a cyclist against references to Colorado National Monument, McInnis Canyons and the Colorado River. On the west side, the design brings together Greta the Dinosaur, the sculpture in downtown Circle Park, and colorful flowers created by Fruita residents. The city says those drawings were digitized and incorporated into the finished artwork after residents were invited to take part during community events earlier in the summer.
A new viewing telescope in Mulberry Plaza offers a way to look closer. From the plaza, visitors can pick out details in the banners and search for the flowers scattered through the dinosaur design. The instrument itself has a previous life: before coming to Fruita, it was used at the Empire State Building from 1991 to 1997, according to the city. The telescope gives visitors a way to explore small parts of the artwork one detail at a time.
The unveiling completed a project that began with a familiar landmark showing years of wear. For decades, two banners had hung from the tower as a visual welcome to people coming into Fruita. After they weathered, the city began looking for a replacement that would still feel connected to the place. The COOP Tower is a retired grain silo tied to Fruita’s agricultural roots; the city describes it as a marker of both the town’s history and the community it has become.
The city selected Downs from three finalists through a committee process involving representatives from City Council, staff, the Arts and Culture Board and the Fruita Tourism Advisory Council. The city says reviewers considered the artists’ proposed ideas, prior work, ability to meet the schedule, connection to Fruita and plans for public participation. The brief called for two different but cohesive designs: one reflecting tourism, outdoor recreation and mountain biking, and another focused on local culture and community.
That split gives the two banners separate subjects. The cyclist and landscape imagery points outward to trails and places that draw people to the area. The dinosaur and flowers point back toward the people who live there. Fruita’s selection announcement called for a pair that would balance its tourism identity with local culture and community participation. The finished project follows that brief through different scenes on opposite sides of a landmark.
Before the designs were finalized, the city invited residents to create botanical drawings, individually or at public “paint parties.” The later announcement says those contributions were digitized and included in the finished work. The city and local report do not give a count of participants or identify individual contributors, so the scale of the contribution is best described in the terms the city used: community-made flowers became part of the finished banner.
Downs told KKCO she hopes the artwork’s concept and the care put into it will last. The city’s earlier artist brief called for work that would be recognizable from a distance while offering community details up close. The two banners answer that brief at different scales: a cyclist and landscape viewed across the plaza, and small flowers visitors can search for around Greta. The telescope gives people a way to inspect those details without needing to approach the tower.
The city says the artwork and telescope were paid for with lodging-tax revenue generated by overnight visitors. Fruita directs those funds to tourism-related projects intended to support residents as well as visitors. Visitors can see the work in place and use the telescope to examine it. The flowers began as drawings made by residents; on the tower, they sit among the dinosaur design, as one part of a welcome shaped by both the local landscape and local participation.
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