A flood of international orders has prompted a major local expansion by a company responsible for some of the world's most-recognized commercial LED displays.

D3 LED recently completed a move into 80,000 square feet at 11370 Sunrise Park Drive in Rancho Cordova – almost triple the space it had at a nearby site.

Co-founder Jason Barak says D3 made the move because it was "bursting at the seams" after a deluge of new orders.

Giant digital displays at New York's Times Square remain the company's "bread and butter," Barak says, noting that recent jobs include huge, high-resolution store signs for Disney and Forever 21 in the Big Apple's glitziest district.

But he says the 5-year-old company has diversified, taking on big international projects from "Kazakhstan to Australia" and doing smaller signage jobs at scores of locales, including McClellan Park, Raley Field and Cache Creek Casino in this area.

All of D3's engineering work is done at the Rancho Cordova site, where about 50 people are employed. Another 20 employees work in New York.

Company sales? They're not disclosed. But Barak says this much: "Last year in Times Square alone we did $15 million plus."

Farmland filming

Call this the development project that won't die. We're talking about "Declaration Studios," a proposal for bringing a massive independent film studio, hotel and related amenities to the Central Valley.

The idea was first floated in the late 1990s. The proposed site then was El Dorado Hills. Backers later shifted their focus to Sutter County. Over the past couple of years they've been negotiating for a site in Vallejo. But building in Vallejo was deemed too costly.

Now, the same group is pitching its project – no longer called Declaration Studios – at the former Crows Landing air base near Patterson in Stanislaus County.

The proposed site is controlled by Sacramento developer Gerry Kamilos. He characterizes the proposal as "exploratory" but says the L.A. studio people behind the project seem serious.

He also suggests it's not so far-fetched to build a 1.2-million-square-foot studio complex in such a remote location.

One huge advantage, he says, is being in a place that's not surrounded by tall buildings. If there were four-story apartments nearby, he says, "you'd have the paparazzi renting all the view units" to take pictures.

Big canvas

Almost completed: A massive piece of public art in Davis.

After four months of work, muralists Sofia Lacin and Hennessy Christophel are putting the finishing touches on their abstract painting covering the water tower off Interstate 80 near the Mace Boulevard exit.

All 14,000 square feet of it.

The two 26-year-olds recently attached thin metal "cutouts" that jut out from the roof of the 35-foot-high tank to create shadows. Their final step: Completing lettering, in Latin, celebrating the town's academic roots.

The finished product, to be unveiled Nov. 12, is designed to reflect the topography of the region and the changing of the seasons.

As Lacin puts it, "We're transforming this man-made (tower) into something that belongs in the more natural world."

This is a project that almost didn't happen. After the two artists won a design competition and got the $75,000 job last year, some City Council members felt a more conventional "welcome to Davis" sign would be better.

Eventually, a majority backed an idea that, Christophel says, will "captivate people's imaginations."

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