The race is on to get Auckland looking like a real Super City

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The race to get Auckland City looking like a Super City will see the agency handling the transition rush to change the signs on 4000 vehicle doors and 80 council buildings in the three weeks leading up to November 1.

The king-size rebranding project - which has been budgeted at $860,000 for phase one alone - is being undertaken by the Auckland Transition Agency on behalf of the eight councils merging on that date.

Under the project, the old councils' names will be erased and replaced with the new Auckland Council and the new city's pohutukawa tree logo and corporate blue livery.

Signs will be replaced on council vehicles, civic buildings, service centres, local board offices and libraries.

Change faces even the "Getting on with Auckland" works notices and the colourful arty signs which bid travellers welcome and farewell at Auckland International Airport.

"Tow away area" signs will change too. Community halls will get signs saying "Stack chairs maximum 10 high. Failure to do so may result in extra charges".

Outside and inside signage on the rest of council-owned facilities will be completed by the Auckland Council between November 1 [2010] and next June, says the agency.

From July 2011, everything else - from street, parks and reserve signs to public toilets, bus shelters and rubbish bins - will be changed.

Total numbers of signs to be replaced and the cost depended on Auckland Council decisions.

"It's a fairly big task - the vehicles alone will take some doing in that time frame," said Brian Fairchild of the Sign & Display Association.

"The vehicles have to be taken off the road because the doors must be made spotless to have the new sign put on."

The association has 350 members and a lot of them were tendering for Phase 1 work in which 554 graphics would be changed.

The transition agency's tender request said the aim was to appoint a supplier.

Jim Sharfe, owner of installer Pro Sign Services, said the work involved mainly small sign replacements down to the designer graphics on windows to stop people walking into glass.

"But everyone wants a piece of it because it's an ongoing contract," he said.

"I think it would take eight guys about five weeks because the stuff is so spread out- from Orewa to Bombay."

He said an agency condition - that all signage taken down be placed in storage for six months - was normally requested by corporates, for accounting reasons.