Here’s how city plans to decorate railroad underpasses for March Madness

An artistic contrast between the natural world and the cityscape will highlight murals to be painted under Old Town railroad bridges as Wichita works to tidy up its downtown in anticipation of next year’s March Madness basketball tournament.

The murals will be part of an effort that also includes widening sidewalks and installing furniture and plantings at the intersections on First and Second streets.

In addition to approving the mural designs and street furniture, the City Council this week budgeted about $1.6 million for the initial phase of the two-year, $3.3 million project.

While some of the work along Second Street will have to wait until after March, city officials hope to get as much done as they can in time for the influx of visitors expected for the NCAA basketball tournament, which will be holding first-round games March 15-17 at Intrust Bank Arena.

The tournament weekend, Wichita’s first since 1994, is expected to bring about $10 million to $11 million in increased commerce to the city. And City Hall has embarked on a program of municipal improvements to get ready.

The planned murals will cover up whitewashed concrete walls of the railroad overpasses at First and Second streets at the western edge of Old Town.

The mural designs by local artist Todd Whipple were derived from the style of the 19th-century Dutch post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh, with a Kansas spin on the content.

The south wall of the First Street overpass will feature ethereal human figures floating above a stylized wheat field, with browns and yellows dominant.

The north wall will be a night cityscape with shades of blue, purple and black as the main colors.

Viewed from the west, “the right side is representing the natural environment ... the left side represents the built environment,” said city engineer Gary Janzen, who presented the plans to the City Council.

At Second Street, the underlying sketch art will be the same, but the positioning of the murals and color schemes will be reversed, he said.

“The overall theme is humans and human interaction,” he said.

This story was originally published July 13, 2017 at 7:47 PM with the headline "Here’s how city plans to decorate railroad underpasses for March Madness."