Westfield says street-sign auction raised over $86,000 for public arts

Town staff reported that Westfield replaced town and some county street signs with larger blue-and-white signage fabricated in-house and then auctioned retired signs online.

The town launched the auction on Oct. 7 and closed it Nov. 13. According to the council briefing, about 1,848 people registered to bid and the auction drew more than 9,300 bids. Staff reported collecting over $86,000 to date; the top single-sign sale named in the presentation was a sign for Cacollo Place at $550 and the single largest lot sold was 22 signs for $4,200. Thirty-eight signs sold for more than $300 each, and the most-bid sign received 61 bids.

Officials said proceeds will fund public-arts projects, including murals and park programming such as planned improvements at Central Avenue, South Avenue and Westfield Crossing Park. Staff explained the town had been limited by the auction platform’s item-count restrictions and said it plans a smaller follow-up auction next year to dispose of remaining signs (and potentially county signs pending intergovernmental agreement).