Calling the Verizon ‘checkmark’ a logo and saying a proposed sign with a red background would be incongruous with the rest of the street, town officials recently approved a new sign for the company’s location at 139 Elm St.
The Verizon Wireless store at 139 Elm St. in New Canaan is slated to get a new sign over the awning. Credit: Michael Dinan
The Planning and Zoning Commission is asking Verizon to remove a second, similar-looking sign that now stands in the window of the downtown business and to create a white sign with red lettering rather than the inverse.
Verizon has already lowered its awning to make room for a mounted sign and the proposed would sign would blend in better with the row of businesses there, “rather than a 12-foot wide swath of red background,” P&Z Commissioner Dan Radman said at the group’s Aug. 25 meeting.
A rendering of the sign that Verizon applied to put up—P&Z is asking the company to create a white sign with red lettering instead of what’s seen here.
“It will be a little more in keeping with street elevation right there,” Radman said at the meeting, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. “Chicken Joe’s is the same thing. They have ‘Chicken Joe’s’ letters on a white background. It goes.”
Matt Walsh of Meriden-based Tim’s Sign & Lighting Service Inc., who applied for approval for the sign, said he would check with Verizon to see whether the company is OK with the New Canaan specifications.
“I think when it comes down to it, if that is what it takes to get sign approved,” Walsh said. “I don’t know that I have ever seen a reverse ‘Verizon’ from this design. It doesn’t necessarily mean it cannot be done.”
Officials rejected a proposed sign that would include the check mark (above) in favor of a model that has no check mark (below).
The proposed sign would be acrylic, a half-inch thick, with pin-mounted letters, secured to the building on studs mounted through plywood. It will be 12 feet long and 16.5 inches high, according to the sign application.
Walsh originally had applied for a sign that also includes a check mark, but later modified it at the urging of Town Planner Steve Kleppin, he said.
The ‘Z’ in the Verizon sign is unusual in that the bottom part of it extends below the final two letters of the word. Walsh in seeking P&Z approval for the sign noted that Baskin-Robbins and other stores appear to have lettering that includes what could be taken for company logos.
Walsh said specifically that the Baskin-Robbins sign includes a logo that didn’t get approved until 2008, after an update to the New Canaan Zoning Regulations.
“The sign, in theory, should not have been allowed,” Walsh said.
P&Z Commission Secretary Jean Grzelecki said: “If this in fact was a mistake, which it could very possibly have been, one thing which we are fortunately not required to do is repeat our mistakes.”