ROCHELLE – As the city continues its beautification process in its downtown area, residents will begin to see the City of Rochelle logo under their feet as they walk down the sidewalk.

Rochelle Community Development staff members have been painting the Rochelle City logo on different corners of the sidewalk in the downtown area. The city purchased stencils from Printing Etcetera, got cement paint and began tracing out the logos and painting them in.

The logos are located on the corner of Lincoln Highway and Lincoln Avenue, the corner of Fourth Street and Lincoln Highway and on the sidewalks with ramps that come up from the intersections. There will be a total of five logos throughout the downtown in an effort to spruce up the area.

“We are just trying to keep progressing and moving the downtown area forward with more color, livelihood and just some fun things,” community development director Michelle Pease said.

Since COVID-19 and the quarantine begun, the city has been looking for ways to continue forward in adding to the downtown area. With the many guidelines set by the CDC and health officials, the city thought this was a smart and safe way to keep its momentum.

“This whole COVID thing has put us on hold and we didn’t know what the future was going to look like,” Pease said. “So, we are just trying to do small, cheap and economical things that will keep our downtown progressing forward.”

The logos were freshly painted during last week and since then, the city has received compliments from residents who have said that they look very nice. The City of Rochelle is already working on its next project to add to the downtown area in the future.

“We wrote a grant for another mural through the Rochelle Area Community Foundation and they have put those funds on hold for us,” Pease said. “We want to do some more artwork and murals downtown to continue adding more fun and brightness to the area.”