There I was Tuesday, beating the newspaper against my head after reading this:
The city’s Planning & Growth Management Department believes [Golden Corral’s] proposed sign is too big, much more so than what is allowed in the city ordinance. Proposals have the sign at 40-foot, 215-square-feet tall [sic]. The city requires 25-foot-tall, 70-square-foot signs for businesses such as Golden Corral […]
Russ Hruby of RJH Management Corp. said the company is willing to meet whatever restrictions are decided upon by the zoning commission or City Council. […]
[Second District City Councilwoman Barbara Van Auken says,] “We’re going to work with them and give them as close to the size as they want,” she said. “That area is a little unique in that way that there is a lot of big signs on University. While we like to get signs smaller, we have to be realistic. As new businesses locate there, they have big signs to compete with.”
Think about that for a minute and let it sink in:
Here’s a developer who is locating on University Street between War Memorial Drive and Forrest Hill — a stretch of road that is the epitome of poor urban design, and probably the most often-cited example of visual clutter in the City. Presumably, city officials would like to see the area improved and would jump at the opportunity to start scaling down the signs to bring them in line with the sign ordinance.
And it gets better! The developer says he’s “willing to meet whatever restrictions are decided upon by the zoning commission or City Council” — unlike Westlake Shopping Center which intimidated the City Council into giving it a big ordinance-busting sign by claiming its then-secret tenant (later revealed to be Fresh Market) would not locate there if they couldn’t have a humongous sign. No, this developer is very happy with the City, and doesn’t perceive the city as unfriendly to business. In fact, he’s quoted as saying, “It’s not an adversarial position at all…. Peoria has been (accommodating).”
What an opportunity! No threats, no intimidation. A new business on University street willing to abide by the code! Could this be the start of cleaning up University and reducing visual clutter? Could this business’s sign compliance be used as a shining, positive example for other businesses who locate there in the future?
Enter Barbara Van Auken, Second District Council Representative.
“We’re going to work with them and give them as close to the size as they want,” she said [emphasis mine]. What? Why in the world would you want to do that? “That area is a little unique in that way that there is a lot of big signs on University….” Hmmm, “unique” is one word for it; “ugly” is another. “Blighted” fits the bill, too.
“While we like to get signs smaller, we have to be realistic. As new businesses locate there, they have big signs to compete with.” I’m not sure whether this is doublespeak or just plain self-contradiction. If Councilwoman Van Auken really would “like to get signs smaller,” then she logically would not “give them as close to the size as they want,” which is three times the size allowed by ordinance and twice as big as the McDonald’s sign across the street, especially after the developer has already stated for the record that he’s “willing to meet whatever restrictions are decided.”
So the bottom line is that signs will continue to escalate in size along University, unless the rest of the council does the right thing and upholds the sign ordinance. The unwritten rule on the council is that you always vote for what the district council member wants for a project in his or her district. That’s a poor policy in general, and one that definitely should be disregarded in this case.
For those of you who like visuals, I drew this in Google Sketch-Up to show you a comparison of the maximum sign allowed by ordinance (on the left) versus the size of the sign requested by Golden Corral (on the right). These are to scale. Note also the size of an average human at the bottom:
What has always irked me about the sign rules is that a business can only put in a somewhat small sign on their building or out in front. The billboard company however can stick a HUGE billboard up right next door. Why am I the business limited on the size of my sign but the billboard company has the city blessing to put up huge billboards throughout the city?
That is the kind of sign you see on the highway so folks can see it for miles to know when to turn. Not needed in the city people aren’t driving at 80 mph and need advance warning.
Considering McDonald’s just tore down their building and sign and are rebuilding, this could be a perfect opportunity to start bringing signs in the area into line with the ordinance.
The city should work with CILCO on that block of University and relocate the power lines and poles like they did on Main Street a few ago. There are a few signs that look bad like the WMBD sign but most have been updated over the years and look to fall into current codes. That area used to be the edge of town and I am sure back then the business’s wanted tall signs to attract people off of hwy 150 which was basically a rural highway.
The one sign along University that would be nice to see preserved is the Arbys neon sign. Some cities are starting to recognize mid-century (1940’s-1960’s) architecture and signs as historic landmarks. That property has been for sale along with the bowling alley next door so I guess it is just a matter of time before it is sold and torn down.
I do like how the properties around the middle of town are starting to become more desirable than locations out in the corn fields like Grand Prairie. I think businesses jumped on that bandwagon when Grand Prairie was being built and some are now sorry they are way out there when the population center is still University and Glen.
Just look at all the new development around the middle of town. Maybe people are realizing they like to live close to services instead of having to drive several miles to a grocery store or shopping. As a result new business it reconizing this and locate close to the population center instead of on the “edge” of town.
I should have also pointed out that the city doesn’t “require” 25-foot-tall, 70-square-foot signs, like the paper said. That’s the maximum allowed under the code. Businesses are free to put up smaller signs if they wish.
Businesses are free to obey the law…. huh… interesting idea.
Two things. Arby’s is own by a guy that lives out west and the land is leased. Arby’s owner won’t sell otherwise Walgreen’s was all set to build a brand new store on the location of Arby’s and Bowl Mor. The deal fell through because of Arby’s.
Two: You guys in the second keep electing Van Auken, so you get what you get.
Oh and three: When you are chummy with the billboard sign company owner, you get billboards where you want them. Hint: Van Auken and electronic sign on Knoxville.
If Golden Corral builds on University, they won’t need a sign. Just look for the line turning into the parking lot…at least until the next big chain drops a link in Peoria…
I agree with the thought about preserving the Arby’s sign. You don’t see those in many cities any more.
Those who are erecting new signs should follow the ordinance.
That area of University is so bad it should be preserved as a bad example. Or totally redone. Unlikely.
This is Peoria after all, where whatever the big money wants it gets, including stupid signs and bad design, parking lots replacing historic buildings, etc.
Will the museum have a sign?
If so, how big will it be?
How much will it cost – the tax payers?
How sad. Peoria needs fewer and smaller signs from businesses, not larger ones. The clutter in that area is beyond belief. How can anyone actually find anything?
Who gives a crap about how big a sign is? What “beauty” is the sign interfering with along University? A nice new sign, no matter how big it is, will be an improvement over a site that has looked like hell since the mid 70s. It’s a consumer society. If bigger signs didn’t bring in more people, no business would want to spend the big time bucks to throw up the bigger sign. The size of a sign is the least of our worries here in Central Illinois.
Prego Man — Excellent defense of keeping things ugly in Peoria. Thanks for the input.
Funny,
a sign on university is a blight, where there is no residential (not that significant improvements aren’t needed in that area), but the “state of the art Taco Bell” to quote a council member meeting had little trouble avoiding the form based code and didn’t have to put in a wall to cut down on the sound of the 2am drive-through for the residential area behind them. I mean after all, those houses don’t have voters or important people in them, unlike the areas behind the business district East of University….
long story short (too late), both businesses need to follow the rules at hand.
Strange … the city won’t let Retro Tech put any size free standing sign to mark our parking lot. We’re urban, you know. Urban signs have to be attached to a structure. Of course our parking lot is across the alley from our building and there are no structures of any kind on any side of the lot. So it continues to be unmarked. Gotta love zoning.
I was going to say what emtronics wrote. Why do you keep re-electing Van Auken?
But still, the more signs and larger signs the better, I always say. You can’t have too many my grandpappy always used to say. They are like beacons imploring you to divert to the safe harbor where you may deposit your booty for wares undreamt of but readily available and where the women were nice. I think they should mandate large signs for that corridor of University. Sort of in the manner of Times Square. And they should get rid of all those woody and green things that are still there at places on University. It’s a terrible landscape with them there.
Would the sign be located out front on University, or towards the back so they’re visible from I-74/War Memorial? In the case of the latter, most signs that front (or at least are meant to be seen from) the interstate tends to be a little larger.
When you here that East Peoria is business friendly is it because they give the new business’s money and bend or break whatever rules there are to get them(new business) to locate in East Peoria.
Peoria has the reputation of being not business friendly because they hold new and existing business to strict codes?
I hear this all the time that the city is so hard to work with because they are inflexiable about things.
My question is what do we want? The former or later?
Because we allow a business to have a larger sign than is allowed by code make us appear business friendly but at the same time pisses off people that says we give into developers wishes.
If if wasn’t for developers developing then we would not have new business.
For a city facing so many cuts to meet a budget, you’d think they would lighten up and let the sky be the limit…more business = more tax rev.
Ugly business districts drive away customers leading to less revenue.
WHERE on University??????
Friendly not friendly is the most bogus arguement out there and it is gertting old. The fact is that the business chose a location based on a busines plan that probably had some indication that they would make a nice profit given the location. I doubt anywhere in that business plan it mentions the size of the sign having an ill effect towards that profit. You can find many other communitites with much more strict guidlines yet they probably flourish. The fact is we need to be more proactive instead of reactive.
Perhaps they want to put a sign behind the business, and have it tall enough to be seen by drivers whizzing by on I-74…
Maybe they can put in another stoplight at the Meadows/University intersection and finally achieve the Stoplight Every 10 Feet on University Street project.