The Mural Under the Redlands Parkway Isn't Permanent. It Was Never Supposed to Be.

If you ride or walk the Riverfront Trail through the Redlands, you already know the underpass near Redlands Parkway. It is the concrete stretch where the trail dips under the road, the spot where riders slow down for the blind curve, the wall that has had someone else's artwork on it for years.

That artwork is about to change. Between August 29 and September 30, 2026, a new muralist is repainting that wall, along with eight other sites at five other locations along the trail. If you assumed the piece you've been riding past was a permanent fixture, a piece of civic decoration meant to stay, you had it backward. It was never meant to last this long in the first place.

Six Locations, Nine Walls, One Rule

The City of Grand Junction and the Grand Junction Commission on Arts and Culture opened the call for artists this summer, with proposals due August 12 at 5 p.m. Selected artists were given until the end of September to finish. Each artist receives a $1,000 commission per mural, and this year's program covers nine paintable sites spread across six locations:

• The Redlands Parkway Underpass
• The Lower No Thoroughfare Underpass
• The Highway 340 Riverside Underpass
• The Highway 50 and Fifth Street Bridge Underpass
• The Monument Road and D Road Underpass
• The Ridges Boulevard Bridge near Duck Pond Park

That is not a one-time beautification push. It is a standing program called aRT, short for Art on the Riverfront Trail, and this year's cycle is being run by a coalition that includes the Grand Junction Commission on Arts and Culture, the Riverfront Commission, the Colorado Department of Transportation, Mesa County Sheriff's Office, Mesa County Public Health, Super Rad Art Jam, the Urban Trails Committee, and the city's own Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments. That is a lot of institutional weight behind nine walls under bridges, and that scale is the tell that this program is meant to keep running, not to wrap up after one good year.

Why the City Keeps Painting Over Its Own Art

Here is the part that changes how you should think about that wall. The murals along the Riverfront Trail are not archived. They are refreshed every two years, by design, so the program keeps introducing new artists and new work instead of protecting what is already there.

That is an unusual choice for public art. Most cities that fund a mural treat it as an investment to preserve, something to maintain and defend against graffiti or weather for as long as possible. Grand Junction is doing something closer to programming a rotating gallery. The wall under the Redlands Parkway Underpass has already worn more than one design, and it will wear another one by the end of this month. The point was never to give the Redlands a permanent landmark. The point was to give local artists a fresh commission and a fresh audience every couple of years, and to make sure the trail always has something new to notice.

The Artists Who Started It

This is not a new idea grafted onto an old trail. Underpass murals have been part of the Riverfront Trail for at least a decade, and the partners have shifted along the way. An earlier round of the program ran through a partnership between the city and the Western Slope Latino Chamber and the Hispanic Affairs Project, with murals appearing under each overpass between Highway 50 and Redlands Parkway.

One of the muralists selected in that earlier round, an artist named Capps, described the point of the work in terms that still hold up. It was, in Capps's words, about "the love of my community, that's the whole point in all of this."

That sentiment is the throughline connecting a decade of different artists, different sponsoring organizations, and different designs. The program has changed its partners more than once. It has not changed its purpose.

What You'll See Along the Trail Right Now

Before this year's new murals go up, the trail already carries a working gallery. Existing murals sit under the Redlands Parkway, Lower No Thoroughfare, Riverside Overpass, and Highway 50 overpass, painted by a rotating cast of local artists over the years. The murals share the trail with more than 115 sculptures scattered along its length, including a set of large flying birds that watch over a bench at one of the trail's scenic rest stops.

The Riverfront Trail is also a working spot for birdwatching in its own right. Blue Herons use the shallow water along the route to hunt, which is where the Blue Heron Boat Ramp near the Redlands Parkway Underpass gets its name. If you are trying to picture the underpass in question, that boat ramp is the closest fixed landmark. The trail connects through there and continues along Redlands Parkway before reaching the underpass itself.

How to Actually See It

If you are reading this in September, the timing works in your favor. The current cycle of murals was scheduled to be finished by September 30, which means a walk or ride through the Redlands Parkway Underpass this month should show you either a muralist still finishing up or a completed piece that has been up for only a few weeks.

That is a narrow window worth using. Two years from now, the wall will look different again, and whatever design goes up this fall will be someone else's turn.

None of this changes property values or school boundaries or anything you would ask an agent about directly. It is smaller than that, and more useful in its own way. It is one more reason the Redlands rewards people who actually walk and ride the place they live in, instead of just driving through it. The neighborhood keeps quietly updating itself, and most of the updates never make it onto a real estate listing.

If you already live in the Redlands, keep an eye on that wall this month. If you are still deciding whether this is the kind of neighborhood where you want to notice things like a mural rotation, that instinct is worth paying attention to. Reach out to Michelle Ritter to talk through what living in the Redlands actually looks like day to day, not just what it looks like on paper.