SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- The City by the Bay is about to get its sparkles and shimmer back. Arts nonprofit Illuminate announced Thursday that "The Bay Lights," an installation by artist Leo Villareal on the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, will return on March 20. Villareal w rote in a statement, "The bridge is already full of rhythm, traffic, weather, motion, time -- and the light responds to that complexity through abstraction. It’s not about decoration. It's about revealing the pulse of its location." San Francisco's glittering bridge lights went dark in 2023 and the installation was removed. Since then, it has been replaced with a new, custom-engineered LED light system designed to perform long-term, even in the bay's harsh and famously foggy marine environment, the nonprofit said. In total, 48,000 LEDs were installed and programmed to display choreographed sequences. "The Bay Lights belong to San Francisco,” said Ben Davis, founder of Illuminate. "They’re a reminder that beauty can live at the scale of infrastructure -- and that awe can be part of a city’s identity." Musco Lighting, a global leader in large-scale lighting systems, led the engineering and fabrication of the new system. Adam DeJong, a project manager for Musco Lighting, said, "Everything has been designed specifically for the Bay Bridge environment: the wind loads, the salt air, the vibration, and the need for long-term reliability." In January, KRON4 captured timelapse video showing workers testing out the new lights. On March 20, a grand lighting ceremony will debut the primary north-facing installation. The Bay Lights will illuminate nightly from dusk until dawn. A second phase of the project, designed to expand visibility to additional Bay Area communities beyond SF, will be introduced following completion of safety testing and review. ‘Neurologic hazard’: Group sues over Bay Bridge lights The $11-million project was spearheaded by philanthropic leaders and more than 1,300 contributors who made private donations. Donor JP Conte, a key funder for the original 2012 lights, was among the donors who helped make the Bay Bridge twinkle once again. "Supporting The Bay Lights has always been about investing in the soul of San Francisco," Conte wrote in a statement. ...read more read less