AUGUSTA — Plans to bring 25 fiberglass sturgeons to downtown Augusta by summer are taking shape, even as details of where they are to be installed are being worked out.

Michael Hurley launched the first sturgeon created for the project on Thursday. The fish statue was unveiled at the Augusta Downtown Alliance office as part of the art locations scouting effort.

Hurley’s company, Fiberglass Farm of Belfast, produces the fish and is working to meet a schedule that targets mid-June for the installation of the final pieces.

“Most people don’t appreciate how popular this will be,” Hurley said. “These things have been done in many, many cities. The reason they’re over is because they’re really popular and really successful, and I think Augusta is really lucky to do that.

To get there, you have to follow a schedule that has already begun.

On February 8, the Augusta Downtown Alliance issued a call for entries for artists and organizations to submit their qualifications and ideas for painting the sturgeon. The deadline is March 8 and decisions are expected to be announced two weeks later. Artists will receive a $250 stipend for the cost of materials.

Five have been submitted so far, according to Michael Hall, executive director of the Augusta Downtown Alliance.

At the same time, fish production is underway.

The model sturgeon, from which a mold for the other fish will be made, was made by Fairfield artist Jen Dubord in mid-February.

Hurley said the fish are to be assembled from blown fiberglass panels that will be glued together, with mounting steel inserted. A decision is expected in the coming weeks on how the fish will be ridden.

Artists will be able to pick up the sturgeons in May and then have about six weeks to complete them. Once the fish are turned, they should be set up on concrete bases throughout downtown Augusta.

Hall said a map is planned to identify the location of the sturgeon carvings.

“The goal will be that you can go from one to the other,” Hall said. “I have a general orientation that I would like them to follow, which is south to north. That’s how sturgeons jump in the Kennebec.

Michael Hurley, owner of Fiberglass Farm of Belfast, carries one of 25 sturgeon statues his company is making for the Augusta Downtown Alliance’s public art program on Thursday. Hurley and the fake sturgeon are in Market Square. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Fiberglass public art installations debuted in the United States in 1999 with “Cows on Parade”, when 300 life-size decorated cows were installed throughout Chicago before being auctioned off to raise funds for charities.

“It was the first time anyone had done it,” Hurley said. “There has never, ever, ever been a more successful program that unites business and the arts. Nothing else has ever succeeded so perfectly.

An estimated 800,000 people came to see the cows, Hurley said, and spent an average of $200 each, boosting the economy.

The program was repeated in other cities with local iconic objects or animals: Cleveland, Nashville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas, had guitars; Buffalo, New York, had buffaloes; Cincinnati had pigs; and Cheyenne, Wyoming, had cowboy boots.

Hurley’s company didn’t make them all, but it created, among dozens of others, the bears in Belfast, the cod in Baltimore and the light bulbs for West Orange, New Jersey, home to the Thomas Edison laboratory complex. .

The Fiberglass Farm has also produced World Series ring sculptures that stand 4 feet tall and have been installed outside Polar Park, home of the Worcester Red Sox in Massachusetts, and more recently statues bobblehead, including five for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Sturgeon Project was made possible through a place building grant T-Mobile provided to Augusta and two dozen communities across the country.

Working with Main Street America and Smart Growth America, two organizations focused on building strong and thriving small communities, T-Mobile awarded all 25 grants in this round of funding. The company has committed $25 million to community development projects over the next five years.

In other communities, art was auctioned off to raise money for charity.

Sturgeons should be exposed for two years. They are then to be auctioned off, with the proceeds dedicated to future art projects in downtown Augusta.

If the sale price is $1,000 or more, $500 will go to the artist, less any expenses or materials received.

As for their lifespan, Hurley said, “I guarantee you we’ll all be dead and gone and they’ll be fine.”

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