We’re all for having a beautiful downtown area. The “park in the heart of the city” image promoted by Downtown Lawrence Inc., sounds positive. Plantings that provide year-round color would be nice.

But planters painted the color of terra cotta? Are we going for the Southwest plaza look?

Terra-cotta-colored planters might be appealing to some people, but they don’t seem to fit all that well in Lawrence’s downtown. There also is the question of increased maintenance costs to keep the paint on the planters fresh and graffiti-free.

City officials are right to keep updating and improving the downtown streetscape to make sure it remains vital and attractive. Many of the proposals under consideration seem like good ones, but the terra cotta theme may warrant some additional review.