At a special Tomball City Council workshop, consultants from Westwood presented two conceptual families of gateway monumentation and wayfinding signs and asked for council and stakeholder input on design direction.

The consultants described one option as a vertical stone monument that adheres to TxDOT sign criteria — roughly a 20-foot maximum height — and a second, bolder option made of a series of perforated metal panels that could be scaled larger if the city acquired or obtained a waiver for the TxDOT right‑of‑way in the triangular site between State Highway 249 and Business 249. Patrick Owens, the Westwood landscape architect presenting the concepts, said the project team was "wide open in this creative process. We'd love your input."

Why it matters: gateway and wayfinding signs serve as a long‑term civic brand. The design choice affects visibility from the toll road, maintenance requirements, and interactions with TxDOT right‑of‑way rules; it may also require additional property agreements or waivers for larger installations visible from a distance.

Consultants said they have been working with a 12‑member stakeholder group and have narrowed initial options to two primary concepts and a set of roughly 11–12 potential sign locations citywide. The firm recommended starting with the large triangular site on the city’s south side as a test case and then adapting the selected concept to smaller entrances and in‑town wayfinding.

Multiple council members and stakeholder representatives favored the perforated metal, multi‑panel concept for visibility from the bypass and toll road. Amanda Kelly of the Tomball Farmers Market told the council, "We liked concept number 2 better than concept number 1" and emphasized incorporating local imagery and festivals into the panels. Several council members suggested combining materials — for example, wrapping a metal panel in stone at some locations while using plain metal panels at high‑visibility highway sites.

The design team discussed imagery options that stakeholders raised, including Tomball’s train history, oil and agricultural heritage, and the tagline "Hometown with a Heart"; speakers suggested the tagline or a greeting (“welcome home,” “hometown with a heart”) could be included beneath the city name on some signs.

On maintenance, the consultants advised the council that painted or coated metal elements will require periodic recoating (a rough 5–10 year cycle was mentioned) and that weathering steel has different staining concerns that must be engineered into landscape and drainage plans.

Council and stakeholders also discussed process and timing. The consultant outlined a conceptual timeline that would include a properly advertised public meeting, two further stakeholder concept meetings and a final wrap of conceptual design, with an aim to complete the conceptual phase before year‑end. The council asked staff to refine the concepts based on tonight’s feedback and to return to council for review before scheduling Public Meeting No. 1.

The workshop participants also discussed regulatory constraints with TxDOT. Owens told council members that standard TxDOT criteria limit sign height in roadside rights‑of‑way but that there are different review criteria for public art and that staff would meet with TxDOT and the district contacts as the design advances.

Next steps: staff will refine the two concept families into a single, cohesive family of elements and apply that family to the priority locations (the four main entrances and other high‑priority sites), prepare cost estimates, and return to council for direction before publicly advertising the next public input meeting.