Director of Public Works Steve Moreton isn’t scared to get hishands dirty, or possibly to even get a little spray paint onthem.

Moreton and his crew Tuesday put up more than 50 new road signsin the downtown area. The signs were funded by the signage andlighting grant awarded to the city of Brookhaven with the help ofthe Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce.

“The new signs look great,” said Mayor Bob Massengill at lastnight’s board of aldermen meeting. “It gives the downtown a wholedifferent look.”

Other city officials are also thrilled with the makeover.

“We’re really excited about this project,” said Cliff Brumfield,executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce. “We had twolocal industries who were able to do this project for us, inMid-South Sign Graphics and B&O Machine and Welding. And thesigns look great.”

The new signs cover the area from Church Street to Second Streetand from Court Street over to Chickasaw Street. Some of the oldsigns are still visible, but officials say they should be downsoon.

“We wanted to get these up first. We didn’t want to remove theold ones before we had new ones up,” said Brumfield. “Some of themare set in concrete, so we’ll work to properly remove them.”

A nice surprise for the leaders of the project was Mid-SouthSign Graphics’ going out of its way to make sure the product wasone both they and the city could be proud of.

“We’re really pleased with these signs,” said Brumfield. “We gota higher quality finish on the signs without having to pay a higherprice. Mid-South Sign Graphics was able to provide us with a higherquality product than we had hoped, and we’re deeply appreciative oftheir top-notch work.”

Work has begun on the additional lighting that will helpbeautify the downtown area, as the points where new lights will beinstalled have been designated with white marks on the sidewalk.The new lights, which will be similar in appearance to the ones infront of the Mississippi School of the Arts, will be put in inaddition to the current downtown lighting.

“The engineering is being done, and we’ll be working very soonwith the engineer to identify the exact spots we’ll be puttingthese in. Some areas may be eliminated or added based upon costs,”said Brumfield, adding the current infrastructure could becompromised by hasty decisions. “We’re dealing with numerouscomplications that have arisen because of 100 years of utilitydevelopments underground, particularly on the corners. These haveto be taken into consideration.”

The focus of the grant-funded project is to funnel additionaltraffic from Brookway Boulevard into the downtown area.