Years after Sam the Record Man’s neon vinyl was dismantled and stored out of view, the sign’s keepers at Ryerson University are now starting the process of restoring it in earnest.

This week, the university issued a request for interested qualified companies to bid on installing the sign on top of a city-owned building facing Yonge-Dundas Square.

A Ryerson spokesperson said it’s too soon to estimate when the sign will be up, but that the university is “committed” to restoring it. Companies that respond will be asked about a timeline, Michael Forbes said in an email. Ryerson will be paying all the costs.

“We look forward to seeing it back up and re-lit.”

That first step follows a prolonged and often fraught debate about the sign’s fate and its place in the city, after the famous record shop locked its doors in 2007.

When Ryerson purchased the prominent Yonge St. location — now home to the university’s new Student Learning Centre — council quickly moved to designate the late Sam Sniderman’s sign as city heritage.

That meant Ryerson was responsible for preserving the sign — two large records with spinning lights and black and white “Yes this is Sam the Record Man” text — and finding a new home for its display at the student centre.

But after the sign was already stored away in a tractor-trailer at an undisclosed location, Ryerson argued the imposing 15.15-metre-by-10.9-metre sign wouldn’t fit with the new building’s sleek glass design and pushed the city to release the university from the agreement to reinstall it there.

In 2013, council asked staff to come back with a new plan.

The following year, council backed a proposal to put the sign atop the roof of the Toronto Public Health building at 277 Victoria St. — around the corner from the old record store site and facing Yonge-Dundas Square, a spot city staff called a “culturally appropriate and relevant location for the Sam signage.”

When that plan was debated at council, there was concern the building on Victoria St. could also soon be up for sale.

At the request of Councillor Josh Matlow, council voted that any future sale of the site would include an agreement to preserve and maintain the sign there.

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