The future of one of the city’s oldest murals was just saved along with some parking

UPDATED — Long before downtown Wichita and beyond became decorated with murals, the owners of Planet Hair created a signature one on the west side of their salon at 504 E. Douglas.

They feared for the future visibility of the purple celestial creation, though, and perhaps more importantly for customer parking below it.

“We started to get a little nervous,” says Graham Ross, who owns the salon with Linda and Tod Ernst.

He says the city sold a lot behind the salon, which caused it to lose 10 parking spaces.

Ross says they learned that developers also wanted the lot to the west of the salon, which potentially could jeopardize customer parking and — if someone built a new building — the visibility of the mural.

So he and the Ernsts struck a deal with the city for $100,000 and now own the lot for the first time in almost three decades.

“Everyone just assumed it was ours because of the mural,” Ross says.

The three located downtown 27 years ago when much of the buildings surrounding theirs were vacant and boarded.

“We had a vision,” Ross says. “We wanted to be in an old building.”

He says they wanted a “warehousey feel, that kind of old, eclectic building feel.”

Except the area was so sketchy, they often had to walk clients to their cars.

Originally, so few people were around, the city never monitored the parking lot.

Then, Ross says “things started to look a little more promising for the downtown,” and the city began to monitor the parking. So Planet Hair began renting half the lot.

Lately, of course, the area’s growth has been booming.

Ross says that as “a business that was kind of a pioneer business in the downtown growth,” it’s been exciting to see.

“We absolutely love it.”

However, it’s also been a little threatening until the parking could be secured.

Ross also notes that unlike some other businesses more recently, Planet Hair came downtown without any incentives.

“There was no bones thrown to us whatsoever.”

The salon also did its mural before murals became the in thing throughout the city.

In addition to adding some color and interest to the side of a building, Ross says murals seem to help prevent gang tagging.

“I don’t know if there’s, like, a code — a don’t tag artwork sort of thing, he says.

“But no one’s ever touched that mural.”

This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 5:03 AM.