Amid the gloom of gathering storm clouds Wednesday, some good news shone through for aficionados of the “Bay Lights,” the ever-changing art installation on the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge.

The bridge’s official overseers, the Bay Area Toll Authority, gave its blessing to a proposal to reinstall the lights — in time for the January 2016 Super Bowl — as a permanent fixture on the four-tower suspension span.

The “Bay Lights,” billed as the world’s largest light sculpture, uses 25,000 LED lights to turn the 1.8-mile span into a nightly light show displaying constantly changing abstract images. It was intended as a temporary, two-year installation.

The authority’s oversight committee unanimously approved an agreement under which the artist and nonprofit that installed the work would take it down in March then reinstall it in a sturdier form by the start of 2016 and turn it over to Caltrans. The agency would the Lights, and the Bay Area Toll Authority would pay the $250,000 bill for maintenance and electricity — from toll revenues.

Before that can happen, however, Illuminate the Arts, the group behind the light sculpture, has to raise $4 million to cover the cost of the permanent installation. It only has until the end of the year to do so.

“That will allow it to not only come back but to come back during the Super Bowl,” said Ben Davis, founder of Illuminate the Arts. “And to become a lasting and enduring piece of our skyline.”

Leo Villareal, the light sculptor who created “Bay Lights,” said he was flattered that it could become permanent and pleased that it’s been praised by the public.

“It’s really become part of the fabric of the Bay Area,” said Villareal, who lives in New York. “It creates a sense of community; it inspires conversation. I’ve said that it’s kind of a digital campfire.”

There are, of course, critics, including The Chronicle’s architecture critic, John King, who wrote Wednesday that the Bay Lights “doesn’t measure up to the grandeur of the its setting at the center of Bay Area life.”

Committee members, however, praised the plan to make it permanent.

“I always wondered why it was temporary,” said San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener. “It has been immensely popular. It’s beautiful, it’s iconic.”

The only note of dissent, if it even rose to that level, was a suggestion from a man in the audience who would not give his name. He suggested selling a corporate sponsorship to a business that would buy the right to occasionally display its logo on the span.

“It wouldn’t cost us anything, and it could cover the cost of maintaining it,” he said.

His suggestion was greeted with a few chuckles from committee members and disapproving looks from Villareal and “Bay Lights” backers. Davis said after the meeting that his organization and Villareal will retain creative control over the sculpture.

“We consider the work perfect — a beautiful piece of art,” he said. “People will never see a logo on the side of the bridge. The integrity of the art will never be compromised.”

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan