Crescent City councilors hope the community, especially local businesses, come to their next meeting ready to chime in on four designs they’re considering for an entryway into Beachfront Park and the downtown area.

Their goal is to select a design and decide if Front Street should be renamed to something that’s more reflective of Crescent City. Some options kicked around Monday include Ocean Drive, Oceanfront Drive and Beachfront Drive.

But, according to City Manager Eric Wier, the City Council doesn’t have much time to make a decision. The city needs to spend the $3 million in Clean California Grant dollars it received for the project by June 30, 2026. This means it needs to hire a contractor by early spring 2025 and have the project under construction between May and October, according to Wier’s staff report.

The City Council hopes to decide on a project design by Nov. 4, according to Mayor Blake Inscore.

On Monday, though he noted that his days on the City Council are coming to a close soon, Inscore said if Front Street was renamed, he preferred Beachfront Drive over Oceanfront Drive.

“From a Google analytics [standpoint], if you put in Beachfront Park, you’re going to get Beachfront Drive and you’re going to get businesses associated with that,” he said. “I would use one term from a marketing standpoint. We have two hotels called Oceanfront. Again, from Google analytics, we don’t want to be confused with a hotel.”

Crescent City received a $3 million Clean California Grant to create a seamless gateway from the S Curves at U.S. 101 and Front Street into Beachfront Park and the downtown business district. The aim is to celebrate the region’s natural beauty including its ocean, beaches and forests, City Manager Eric Wier said, but the project has to be finished in the next year.

On Monday, landscape architect Ben Johnson, of GreenWorks Design, and interpretive planners Susan Jurasz and Peter Reedijk, of SeaReach, presented the Council with four different concepts. All of the options included a welcome and way-finding monuments as well as an actual gateway.

Wier also showed Councilors a map of Crescent City published by The Sanborn Map Company in 1950 for insurance purposes. He noted that Front Street didn’t exist back then. Instead, he said, it called Ocean Drive.

“A lot of cities have a Front Street or a Main Street or a First Street,” Wier said. “Not many have a street that could be called Ocean Drive or Oceanfront Drive, and as you have that on your signage, it’s not only turned into a street name sign, but it’s also more of a way-finding sign.”

The city manager noted that some of the options Councilors considered on Monday, the proposed gateway arch in particular, would have Oceanfront Drive emblazoned on it by default.

The first, second and third gateway concepts incorporated waves and dolphins, a group of pilings driven into a seabed or riverbed that’s often used to moor boats — not to be confused with the marine mammal.

The first option features a larger wave with bubbles on one side of the northbound lane and soars over the road at 15- to 25-feet high. According to Reedijk, it’s about the height of the 1964 tsunami. The opposite side is more restricted, which would create for a smaller monument, making the whole look uneven, Reedijk said.

On the southbound side, the first option involves increasing the height of the dolphins and wrapping the wave around them so it would mirror the wave design at the entrance to Beachfront Park, he said.

The second option is similar to the first, but cuts down on the number of bubbles and introduces motorists to Oceanfront Drive — or Beachfront Drive if that’s what the City Council ultimately decides.

The third option features a gateway arch that incorporates both dolphins and waves. At the intersection of U.S. 101 and Front Street, it will go over the entire road, welcoming people into the Beachfront Park area, according to Reedijk.

“The ‘Crescent City’ could be something that’s sandblasted — that’s a very traditional way of making signs in places on the ocean — and then when you get to the Oceanfront Drive intersection, it actually crosses the road,” he said. “There’s a relationship with the waves that are in the park where we slowly start to introduce the waves as you go along and they slowly become more pronounced as you go down the road.”

On the side of the street where space is limited, incorporating the dolphins will go along with the area’s overall theme, Reedijk said.

Reedijk’s final option included a “very masculine” Welcome to Crescent City sign with a more traditional gateway that spans the road.

“It’s large. It’s bold. It has a huge presence when you get to the intersection,” he said. “We want people to be able to get a glimpse of this as they go through the S Curves and as you go through them, we start to introduce the waves again. You start with the dolphins. The dolphins become their own language, in a sense, and as they go through Front Street, we start to introduce the waves. And as we end up in the park, you just have the waves and there are no dolphins in there.”

Before councilors weighed in on the design concepts, Wier said that Front Street, which is still under construction, will change quite a bit. There will only be two lanes and a bike lane at the K Street intersection and will be about 36-feet wide, he said.

Councilor Kelly Schellong Feola said she liked the third option with the waves wrapping around the dolphins. It stands out, she said, and reminds her of the entrance to Bandon, Oregon’s downtown area. She said she felt the first option, with the bubbles, was too contemporary.

Inscore said he liked the archway in the third option, but favored the fourth option without the waves. He said he felt the concept that just includes the dolphins at the intersection of Front Street and U.S. 101 didn’t compete with the Point of Honor monument, which honors the community’s veterans.

But, Inscore said, the Council needs to come to a compromise.

“When we come to this meeting on [Nov.] 4th, we need to encourage the public to be here,” he said. “We need to find ways to get the design out in front of them — whether that’s through Facebook — so the community can know that we’re really trying to make a good decision.”

Wier said the city would do as much outreach as possible before Nov. 4. He said he especially wanted to hear from businesses in Downtown Crescent City and on Front Street.