Chamber to Unveil Sign, Bury Capsule

The Sun Valley Area Chamber of Commerce will unveil a “Welcome to Sun Valley” sign and seal local memorabilia into a time capsule at 5:30 p.m. on July 23.

“Residents can donate items. Businesses can donate items” to the time capsule, said Doris Jacobs, executive director of the chamber.

The capsule--to be opened in 2098--will be sealed within a new industrial manufacturing building at the corner of Sunland Boulevard and Tuxford Street.

The developer of the still-vacant building, Al Young, said the idea came about after the city of Los Angeles required his Burbank company, Young Properties, to spend 1% of its construction budget for the building on an accompanying art project.

When he realized the art project--a 30-foot-high, triangular structure made of multicolored ceramic tiles in the front of the building--would be hollow, Young had “this brainstorm that it would be a lot of fun to put a time capsule inside,” he said. “A crane will lift it up and drop it in.”

The capsule will be 6 feet, 4 inches high and 2 1/2 feet wide, Jacobs said. It will be made of gold-colored fiberglass and shaped like a pill in capsule form, she said.

Jacobs said local businesses already have donated mostly paper items such as restaurant menus and calendars with photographs specific to the culture of the 1990s.

In addition to the capsule, Young plans to erect a sign on the corner of his property facing Sunland Boulevard and Tuxford Street that says “Welcome to Sun Valley” as a gesture to the neighborhood, he said.

For more information, call (818) 768-2014.