New sculptures at Airway and I-10 now permanently lit

Motorists will now see the art installation at I-10 and Airway permanently lit.

The Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority is officially finished with the $7 million project and turned on the lights Thursday evening.

The project includes new pedestrian walkways that’ll allow people to walk from the hotels to the Starbucks or a nearby store. The main attraction is the art installation by artist Vicki Scurri which are lighted wind turbines that generate electricity and are powering all of the interchange.

“Those lights are for the sculptural pieces for the pedestrian features underneath and anything that needs power in the interchange. But when they’re turning during the day and we don’t have lights on – that energy gets pushed back into the grid,”said Raymond Telles, the Executive Director with the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority.

The City of El Paso contributed $210,000 and Keep El Paso Beautiful put in $265,000. “It just changes the concept and the makeup of the whole area,” said City Rep. Emma Acosta who represents the area and voted for the project in 2011. TxDot agreed to pay for the large majority of the project if the City agreed to maintain it.

“This is the main interstate thoroughfare for the southern portion of the united states so anybody coming through the east to the west comes through here and see us – and this is going to be – in a lot instances – the only impression,” said Telles.

Telles said the installation will probably not be changing colors for the first few weeks so drivers won’t become distracted.

This is the first project in a 15-year long term plan to beautify I-ten from Hawkins to Executive.