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A painter is applying a mural next to Renton’s Legacy Square today (Saturday, May 23)
Renton City Council has discussed the artwork for Legacy Square at several public meetings. In their last meeting on this topic (May 4th), they still had not agreed on the murals for either the side of the church abuting Legacy Square or for the stage doors.
The City’s “In Case You Missed it” summary of the May 4th Council Meeting says: “Following up from the April COW, the Legacy Square artwork was included in the consent agenda. During the meeting, council pulled the item for discussion; during which Community Economic & Development Administrator Gina Estep provided an overview of the community engagement and Arts Commission process over the past year that led to the proposed design. After discussion, the council did not approve the artwork and requested additional community engagement and council input in the final design.”
I was therefore surprised to see a professional crew painting a mural at Legacy Square on the side of the church today at 1:00. I don’t think the public has been informed what to expect in this mural. And since this is a three-day holiday weekend, I presume some type of overtime pay is involved.
I checked Council records for the May 11 and May 18 Council Meetings, and didn’t spot any further votes about this artwork. I suppose I could have missed them, but I also have not seen any public messaging about this artwork.
It looks like a different design than the one that was officially proposed after the RFP, artist selection, Arts Commission review, and public council debate.
If anyone knows what this artwork will be, or when/how it was approved, I would appreciate your sharing it in a comment. Thank you!
This is the design that was proposed for this wall, and has been the subject of Council discussions. The discussions were covered in detail by the Renton Signal in this article here.
This design does not look like the dragon that the Council had been discussing. I’m not sure if the public has been given information about what this design will be.
I love the colorful dragon design with the sun and the rain. I wish it had been approved.
I see that a mural is being painted on the side of a church building. Did the city get permission from the church? Or is it the church doing the painting?
At the April 20, 2026 COW (Committee of the Whole), Council reviewed the 3 proposed artwork pieces for the 2 stage doors and large building backing onto Legacy Square. There was discussion about how Renton is being represented and the lovely colors shown. There was no agreement by the end of the meeting, with obvious Council interest in modifying what they saw. COW April 20 2026 Legacy Sq ARTWORK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAgXL2Mxy8.
So I guess Renton now is represented by 2-headed serpent/snake, and bright colors. It was brought up that there is nothing shown for more common themes like aerospace, the Cedar River & even the ducky race, dragons (Wizard of the Coast and Erasmus downtown) football, and others. Well folks, Renton is evolving for sure, and we better like what the artists are doing because it’s going to be there for a long time. That’s my take away from Staff. With just a week until the “grand opening”, it appears that the City is going ahead with non-Council-approved art.
And the Pavilion building is far from complete, contrary to the promises made to Council President Perez by Staff that all would be ready by FIFA when she asked specifically for an answer.
Spot on. Nothing to represent the history of Renton. I expect this artwork to evolve into a rainbow flag…..
Hey Randy, how is the Piazza Park coming along? Did you get any pictures? The Farmers Market opens in 10 days, June 2. My heart goes out to the Market Manager Carrie still waiting to access the park.
They still have a ton of work to get done before they can use the Piazza for anything. They still have a lot of concrete to form and pour, sod to install, fixtures to install, and planting that must be done. They are still working on the awning on the Pavilion building, and the entire Pavilion building still needs to be painted. If they manage to get all this done by the June 2nd Farmers Market, it will be with intensive overtime pay and quick dry concrete. And they’ll have to keep concentrated loads off of the concrete, and keep people off the new grass. Here are a couple photos I shot yesterday afternoon.
Last I heard the church had not given permission (wonder what that sudden permission cost) I never did see any final decision on the actual selection of the art. I was aware of council members concerns about the door design and wall not being cohesive. Also something about the number of dragons (KKV brought this up) Why does the city continue to say residents input and comments are important and welcome when they don’t pay any attention to them. From the sounds of it they don’t pay attention to each other either. Now if you live/walk in Renton this is art in your face if you like it or not.
Thanks for the comment Anonymous. I have no information regarding whether the church has reviewed the design or given permission. I certainly hope that their permission was obtained before painting began, since they own the building. I would expect any church getting a mural on such a prominent wall would have a strong interest in ensuring the mural is consistent with their values and theology. They should have been presented with the final design, even if the public has not seen it yet.
Went for my walk today past the Piazza, just like your pictures a pile of dirt only now its packed down. They keep saying shade but all I see are the stick trees that will take a good 20/30 years to provide shade. Legacy square church wall art is only a blue wall with a yellow stripe and there is nothing on the TV door. I took pictures but my phone is only smart enough to attach to a text,sorry. On my way home I did stop at a yard sale (of course) the lady was very sad that her daughters would never know the joy of the fountain and girl statue that used to be part of downtown. Also a vet that said he didn’t even want to look…
I’m also disappointed about the water features. Ever since I was a little boy I’ve always loved water features in parks. I have five of them at my home, and I love hearing the flowing water from just about everywhere in my yard. It provides a tranquil cover over all the city noise. For anyone that has not seen it, here is the blog post I wrote about the water features at the Piazza.
The picture showing the art with notes on it doesn’t show a stripe….what the heck is going on????
Not a fan of the dragon weeb stuff, but is least better than the corporate clipart they’re putting up now.
Every town gets a theme. Ours just happens to drag on.
Ruth petitioned the council to pause the project to garner more community input, which they acquiesced to, despite Armondo’s disapproval and efforts to belittle Ruth. The council chose to establish a temporary installation and create a more robust process for soliciting community input.
Thank you Anonymous, for this information.
Where & when did this decision take place?
How much is it costing to install temporary art, and then pay to have it removed, and pay to have the “permanent” art installed?
Who is deciding on the “temporary” art, which I’m assuming will be up for next weeks’ Grand Opening?
So many questions, the next few weeks are going to be interesting!
(PS, I’m sorry but not surprised to hear “despite Armondo’s disapproval and efforts to belittle Ruth”. )
Marcie P
This would have been a good thing for the City to cover in their “In case you missed it” posts
“Following up from the April COW, the Legacy Square artwork was included in the consent agenda. During the meeting, council pulled the item for discussion; during which Community Economic & Development Administrator Gina Estep provided an overview of the community engagement and Arts Commission process over the past year that led to the proposed design. After discussion, the council did not approve the artwork and requested additional community engagement and council input in the final design.” (In Case You Missed It – May 4, 2026)
Exactly…this is what was published in the City’s “in case you missed it.” Based on the anonymous comment above, I’m wondering if city needed to add that someone then apparently petitioned the council to act outside of a public meeting (which would be illegal), to approve some undisclosed temporary art of some kind– if that is in fact what happened.
And so far I’ve heard no other explanation than the one offered by “Anonymous” for why someone would be painting artwork on the wall of the church.
The council proposed a temporary wall painting in the same meeting on May 4, 2026, and Gina concurred with the suggestion. The meeting is available on YouTube.
At an hour and 45 minutes into the Council Meeting, Gina Estep says they are working on getting an easement to paint the church and their back-up plan for the art selection is to just paint the church with a compatible color scheme. Her suggestion seems to meet with at least some Council members’ approval, although the Council takes no formal action to approve it, and the plan is not reflected in the Council Minutes in any way. It’s also not reflected in the “in case you missed it.” It’s also not on the topic that was on the agenda, the “Stage Doors at Legacy Square Art Project.” So the public is still guessing what the art or (multi-color paint job) will look like on the church and whether the proper easement was obtained, as well as guessing how much said easement may have cost. With all the communication channels the City readily has available, this information could have been shared weeks ago. As Ms. Estep says in her comments, there was a year-long highly-publicized community process to create the dragon design, so a social media statement explaining what is happening would not be out of order. Lastly, as a taxpayer I’m not thrilled to be painting two different designs on this wall. I would have understood painting the wall a uniform color before the World Cup, and adding a design later; but they are doing a more complex painting job than that. I’ve attached the Consent Agenda, the Agenda Item, and the Approved Council Meeting minutes from the discussion below.
I’m just replying to see my text in a super skinny column because every subsequent reply is wrapped in a container with a lot of padding. Mission accomplished.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to see text in a very thin column, it is wise to come to Randy Corman Dor com, search for a lone reply chain, and add yours to the end. But-also-the-temptation-to-engage-in-page-widening-text-can-become-too-much-to-forgo.
You think your response is skinny…now mine is even skinnier! This seems like an issue wordpress could fix somehow. I might say more about this, except I’m feeling squeezed 🙂
Maybe we need to differentiate between “mural” and “paint”. Stripes is just paint – this should not qualify as a mural. It’s a shame the dragon wasn’t completed – what a beautiful design! Maybe the artist can find a different empty wall to put in on.