Downtown Westminster is about to get more lively with a giant balloon structure honoring the city’s past and future.
The City of Westminster announced the artist and design for a permanent art installation in the new downtown neighborhood during a City Council study session Monday evening.
The city issued an international call for entries at the beginning of the year to commission a “permanent, significant public artwork” to be placed in the new Central Park section of the up-and-coming Downtown Westminster, according to the city.
Westminster received 104 submissions from across the world, with a panel of community members from the North Metro Arts Alliance, staff from the city’s landscape architecture firm DTJ and group of city staff members deciding on winning concept.
The contest was eventually narrowed down to two choices — Hou De Sousa and Engineered Artworks — with the city then asking for public input through local events and online.
Ultimately, New York City design studio Hou De Sousa was selected for its “Float Together” proposal.
Aric Otzelberger, director of Parks, Recreation and Libraries, told the council that the design is a “signature piece of art in downtown that honors the past with an eye to the future.”
The “Float Together” piece will be a hollow, steel hot air balloon made up of bars, mountainous zig-zags and entryways. It will represent both a community quilt and the mechanical hot air balloons once located within the central atrium of the long-ago demolished Westminster Mall.
The Westminster Mall once sat where the downtown area is being constructed, acting as the pseudo downtown for the city until its demise in 2011.
The social use of the mall lies deep within the city’s plans for the new downtown area, which has slowly and carefully developed over the last 14 years.
The area is bounded by 92nd Avenue to the north, 88th Avenue to the south, Harlan Street to the west, and Sheridan Boulevard to the east.
“The mall was always a gathering place, and the idea was to create a modern community space where people want to be. This area is vital to the Westminster community,” Heather Cronenberg, the real estate development manager for the city of Westminster, told The Denver Gazette in July.
The sculpture has a $250,000 budget and is expected to be completed in summer 2026. It will sit in the middle of Central Park, the nearly $11 million project expected to be opened in the fall and completed next spring.
“This will be a feather in the cap of that wonderful park,” Otzelberger said.
“The sculpture is a reminder that unity is built on contribution and holding space for others,” city officials said.
Article written by Sage Kelley, read the original news article on the Denver Gazette.