Banff’s $1.3M Welcome Sign Transformation Is Finally Complete

Nearly a year after Banff’s famous welcome sign moved away from Norquay Road, the new park surrounding it at the Banff train station is officially complete.

The Town of Banff, along with representatives from Norquay Mistic, celebrated the new park at an official opening on Friday, Sept. 18.

The finished space turns what was once a roadside photo stop into a dedicated gathering area near the entrance to the station’s free public parking lot.

The redeveloped park

With landscaping, pathways and seating, the new park gives visitors a dedicated space to gather and access the sign away from traffic.

Earlier estimates put the cost of relocating the sign and developing the surrounding area at approximately $1.2 million.

However, the Town later estimated the project at $1.3 million. It was privately funded by Jan and Adam Waterous, owners of Liricon Capital, which holds the lease for the Banff Railway Lands.

The completion comes as the Town continues encouraging more visitors to leave their vehicles at the train station rather than drive farther into Banff.

The station has approximately 500 free parking stalls, making it the largest public parking lot in town.

The lot was built by Liricon Capital as part of its long-term plans for the site and is now operated by the Town.

Why did Banff move the sign in the first place?

The giant Banff letters had been sitting along Norquay Road since 2017.

What was intended as a welcome sign quickly became something else: a tourist attraction in its own right.

People regularly stopped to take photos, with the Town reporting visitors illegally parking along Norquay Road and pedestrians walking beside or crossing the busy entrance road to reach the sign.

Those safety concerns eventually prompted council to move it.

While the sign was sometimes blamed for backups stretching toward the Trans-Canada Highway, the Town's analysis of traffic-camera footage found 85 per cent of congestion and highway backups on Norquay Road were actually caused by trains crossing the road.

High volumes of vehicles entering town during short periods were identified as another major cause.

The concern with the sign itself was primarily pedestrian safety.

Council first debated relocating it in December 2023. By September 2024, the owners of the Norquay Resort had offered to pay to move it to the train station area.

Council approved that arrangement later that year.

Construction began in August 2025, although work temporarily stopped after excavation uncovered artifacts of potential significance. Parks Canada eventually lifted the stop-work order following an archaeological assessment.

The letters came down from Norquay Road that October before Mayor Corrie DiManno officially unveiled the sign at its new location in November 2025.

“Relocating the sign to this pedestrian-friendly spot will address safety concerns as well as improve the resident and visitor experience,” DiManno said at the time.

The park surrounding it, however, wasn't finished.

That final piece is what officially opened Friday.

The bigger plan for the train station

The park is a relatively small piece of a much larger proposal for the land surrounding Banff's train station.

Town council approved the Railway Lands Area Redevelopment Plan in June 2024, setting out a long-term vision that includes a multimodal transportation hub, visitor arrival centre, additional intercept parking and the restoration of heritage buildings and landscape features.

Development of the Railway Lands still involves additional regulatory and environmental steps.

Intercept parking is a major part of that strategy: getting people out of their vehicles near the entrance to Banff before they drive downtown or across the river.

The existing train station lot opened in 2019 and is within a 10-minute walk of downtown.

This fits into Banff’s broader effort to reduce the number of vehicles travelling into the downtown core.

Nearly seven million vehicles were recorded at Banff's two entrances in 2025, according to the Town. Earlier this year, officials said they were preparing for another potentially record-breaking summer and continued urging drivers to use the train station lot instead of searching for parking downtown.

With the park now finished, attention turns to what happens next with the Railway Lands.

The Town says the site's redevelopment is intended to eventually transform the train station area into a broader arrival and transportation hub rather than simply a place to park, though much of that vision still has regulatory and environmental steps ahead.