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GREENSBORO — Public art advocates gathered Friday at Greene and Washington streets to celebrate the new festive look of the Greene Street parking deck, and to look ahead at the future of public art in the city.

Multicolored polycarbonate wheels that light up at night decorate the three corners of its concrete facade.

A frieze of Plexiglas panels trims the top.

Topping its low pedestrian wall are colorful tiles and a time line of small ceramic models of vehicles, from a Conestoga wagon to the HondaJet of 2010.

“I will never look at a parking garage quite the same way. I see them as a blank palette,” said Jeanie Duncan , president of the United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro, which managed the project.

The Cemala Foundation commissioned Burnsville artist Ron Fondaw to decorate the six-level deck’s exterior.

“Transportation is an exciting theme, because it is part of our past and part of our future,” said Kim Richmond, granddaughter of Martha A. and Ceasar Cone II, who created the foundation.

Friday, Cemala officially gave the art, entitled “Moving Ahead,” to the city to honor its 2008 Bicentennial.

It adds to 100-plus pieces of sculpture, murals and other art in public spaces around Greensboro.

“It makes our city a much better place to live,” Mayor Yvonne Johnson said.

Look for more art to come, spurred in part by a plan spearheaded by the arts council and adopted last month by the Greensboro City Council.

A temporary Public Art Commission created the plan to better coordinate, manage and finance public art efforts that beautify the city and attract tourists.

“There really hasn’t been a coordinated plan for public art before,” Duncan said.

In coming years, it calls for:

* Creating a permanent commission to oversee and advise those planning public art projects, and to commission art. The city council and arts council are forming that group now, Duncan said.

* Hiring a public art manager, starting as a part-time job and moving to full-time. The arts council would finance the job at first with private money, but it eventually would move to the city payroll.

* Creating a public art master plan that identifies future sites and suggests types of works.

* Eventually developing a “percent for art” ordinance. Typically, these allocate 1-2 percent of the budget for a government building project for a work of art. Private developers would be requested to contribute an equal percentage, based on the development’s valuation. Those funds would go to art on site, at a site elsewhere in the city, or toward an already approved public artwork.

Among 450 public art programs nationwide, half operate with a percent-for-art ordinance.

The temporary public art commission helped with the parking deck project.

It suggested potential sites for public art to Cemala and helped to form an artist selection panel.

The permanent commission can play a similar role with other projects.

The parking deck “is one of the most visible examples of how you will see a new public art commission at work,” Duncan said.

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com