Webster Groves Pays Artists $900 to Turn Traffic Boxes Into Art

Webster Groves is putting cash behind an idea that other St. Louis-area suburbs have already tested: paying local artists to turn dull traffic signal cabinets into public art. City officials have announced a new Utility Box Art Program that will hand selected artists $900 each to cover supplies and materials as they transform the metal boxes into eye-catching canvases along some of the city's busiest corridors.

The pilot phase targets four specific traffic signal cabinets — at Brentwood Boulevard and North Elm Avenue, Brentwood Boulevard and Newport Avenue, South Elm Avenue and Glendale Road, and Edgar Road and Garden Avenue on the Webster University campus, according to the City of Webster Groves. As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the city will first paint traffic-signal boxes along or near South Elm Avenue before officials seek out more artists for other parts of Webster Groves. The program is backed by an initial $4,000 budget that went before the City Council in June, per the city's announcement.

How Artists Get Picked

Artists interested in applying must submit a portfolio, a preliminary sketch of their proposal and a written statement, according to the Post-Dispatch's reporting. Proposals will be reviewed by a panel of three Arts Commission members and two city representatives, with the city planning to select artists in mid-September, the newspaper reports. Final designs need panel approval before they can be applied to the street, and the city's own timeline shows the actual painting installations happening over a three-week window in late October and early November.

Webster Groves Arts Commission Chair Janice Seele said the project will convert utility boxes into publicly accessible art, according to the Post-Dispatch. Once complete, the boxes will be visible to drivers, walkers and bicyclists passing through some of the city's most prominent intersections, the paper notes.

Eyeing County Boxes and School Partnerships

Webster Groves Arts Commission member Nick Erwin said the city hopes to work with St. Louis County to highlight county-owned boxes as well, and that officials are considering a few more boxes maintained by the city itself, per the same report. Erwin also said the city hopes to work with local schools to decorate boxes in their own areas — a natural fit in a district where the Webster Groves School District's Gifted Fine Arts Program already trains students in visual arts, music, drama and dance starting in third grade, according to the Webster Groves School District.

The Webster Groves Arts Commission itself isn't new to civic art projects. Created by the city in 2006 to encourage local participation in the arts, the commission is made up of nine to 11 citizen members appointed by the City Council, according to the City of Webster Groves. Between 2016 and 2019, the commission partnered with the North Webster Neighborhood Coalition on an outdoor historical tribute in Barbre Park featuring a bronze sculpture by artist Preston Jackson depicting the history of the Black community in North Webster, per the North Webster Neighborhood Coalition.

Following a Regional Trend

Webster Groves isn't inventing the concept — it's borrowing it. Officials modeled the initiative on the City of Maplewood's public art program along Manchester Road, where artist Genevieve Esson painted five utility boxes, a project that was highlighted in Webster Groves' own promotional video. In Midtown St. Louis, the Grand Center Arts District launched a similar effort in October 2025, commissioning local artists to paint electrical boxes at major intersections along Grand Avenue, including one honoring jazz legend Miles Davis, according to Grand Center Arts District. That district had previously commissioned artists to paint 75 fire hydrants.

The trend extends well beyond the St. Louis region. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, 21 local artists were selected earlier this month to wrap 34 traffic control boxes along Route 66, with artists there earning $500 per design through federal ARPA funding, as Hoodline previously reported. Smyrna, Georgia, launched a citywide version of the same idea this month too.

Part of a Bigger Beautification Push

The utility box program lands amid a broader wave of municipal beautification projects underway in Webster Groves this year. The city is also building Oxford Bend Park on a former flooded McDonald's lot along Deer Creek, a project Hoodline covered this month, and has secured a $1 million federal grant for sidewalk upgrades near Webster Groves High School. Together, the projects signal a city investing simultaneously in flood resilience, pedestrian infrastructure and street-level art — even as it separately faces a $600,000 lawsuit tied to its new aquatic center.