McAllen skyline change in the winds?

McALLEN — For two decades, plans have been kicked around to build a 105-foot- tall, black granite obelisk near the McAllen Convention Center.

The towering steel-and-granite structure, called the American Spire of Honor, would anchor the Veterans War Memorial of Texas, located at the intersection of Galveston Avenue and 29th Street. For years, it’s been an open question whether retired U.S. Army Col. Frank Plummer, the driving force behind the project from the beginning, would ever raise enough money to build it.

At 4 p.m. Thursday, March 24, he will know.

That’s the deadline to submit a bid for the $340,000 project, funded by private donations and city money.

“If the bid comes in more than that, we’re going to have to go out and find some more money,” Plummer said Thursday, speaking at a pre-bid meeting attended by several contractors.

If everything goes well, construction could start this spring, said Sam Garcia, an architect with Rike-Ogden-Figueroa-Allex, which designed the spire. While there’s no set completion date, construction will likely run into 2012.

“It’s once in a generation we get to add to McAllen’s skyline,” Garcia said.

Plans show a steel obelisk on a concrete foundation, with supports sunk more than 40 feet into the ground. The steel structure will be covered with roughly 95 black granite panels, and be topped by a single-piece, stainless steel cap.

Five seals — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard — will be featured on the obelisk’s five sides. Several granite walls nearby will display the names of donors who have contributed to the spire’s construction.

“It’s really going to be a landmark for the city of McAllen,” Plummer said.

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Dave Hendricks covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached (956) 683-4452.