TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Skyline Adding A Little Color

ADVERTISEMENT

By RICH SHOPES

rshopes@tampatrib.com

Published: December 13, 2008

Updated: 12/13/2008 12:17 am

TAMPA - The city skyline will get a new look starting next week.

The owners of the SunTrust building downtown have hired a theatrical lighting company to install outdoor lights to allow for more color choices: red and green for Christmas, pink for breast cancer awareness, green for St. Patrick's Day, and so on.

"You could cycle through eight different shades of green," lighting designer Chris Jones of Bay Stage Lighting in Tampa said Friday.

The current system uses 8-foot-long fluorescent tubes to illuminate the top of the building. Workers can change colors but have fewer options and have to go outside to make the changes by hand, using colored gels.

The new system uses light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, that require a quarter of the electricity of fluorescent tubes, and the colors can be switched with a few computer keystrokes from inside the building.
LEDs last at least 18 years compared with fluorescent lights' seven- or eight-year lifespan.

It's not all good news, though. LEDs cost more upfront. But they pay for themselves in energy savings after about eight years, Jones said.

Jones wouldn't say what the building's owners, Stiles Corp. and Macquarie Office Trust, are paying for the system, which is scheduled for testing Tuesday night.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT