P&Z Approves New Entrance Sign for NCHS

The Planning & Zoning Commission on Tuesday night voted unanimously to approve a new ‘New Canaan High School’ sign at the entrance to the Farm Road campus.

The NCHS PFA is paying for the estimated $30,000 sign thanks to “the success of our annual appeal fundraising efforts and the generous giving community the past several years,” Anne Wagner, a co-president of the PFA Executive Board, told members of P&Z during a special meeting.

“ It was actually inspired by the New Canaan Library site that sits at South and Maple,” Wagner said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “The proposed new entrance site will measure three-and-a-half feet high by 20 feet long by two feet thick, and will be built in a gentle curve of stacked Connecticut stone. It will feature 10-inch-high architectural metal letters in a font that matches the existing lettering on the school building. And it will be lit by five inconspicuous landscape uplights for nighttime visibility. Our hope is that this new entrance sign will serve as a daily reminder of the pride we feel in our school and our community. And it will be a lasting tribute to our New Canaan High School education.”

She was joined in addressing P&Z by fellow Co-President Sarah Wrede, PFA Vice President of Gifts and Grants Heather Boulanger, NCHS Principal Bill Egan and Public Works Director Tiger Mann.

P&Z Chair Dan Radman, Secretary Krista Neilson and members Kent Turner, John Kriz, Arthur Casavant, John Engel, Chris Hering, Paul Knag and Tom Benton voted in favor of the sign site plan and also made a positive “municipal improvement” referral, as spelled out by state law. Commissioner Allen Swerdlowe was absent. Commissioner Kristina Larson was not seated for the item.

P&Z members thanked the PFA for the project and complimented the presenters on the sign.

Turner said, “It is a very nice looking sign.”

Engel said, “I’ve been looking at the signs of our rivals around Fairfield County, and this is the best looking sign of any high school sign. Good job. Thank you. Congratulations.”

Wagner said the Board of Education has supported the project and the Town Council has approved it. With P&Z’s approval, the PFA will be able to return to the school board to formally present the sign donation to the district, she said. The landscape architect on the project anticipates breaking ground in early May so that the sign is in place for graduation, “which would no doubt allow for more graduation pictures this year and also for decades to come,” Wagner said.

Mann said the sign is expected to help clearly identify the entrance to NCHS for motorists.

“At present, cars sometimes tend to travel back and forth and do not necessarily understand that this is the high school, right there,” he said. “It will be constructed of block letters attached to a low stone wall that will be arched to follow the lines of the entrance drive. And the architectural cast metal letters will be the same font and style as the sign that’s affixed to the northern elevation of the high school.”

The inconspicuous granite slab now in place had been a donation from the NCHS class of 1998, Wagner said, replacing an earlier carved-wood version.

Of the existing sign, she said, “You probably have driven past the current campus entrance sign hundreds of times and not really noticed it.”

The existing slab is “proportionally too small for this location,” is difficult to read from the road and suffers from some corrosion, Wagner said.

 Commissioners asked the presenters whether the lights around the sign will go on (at dusk) and off (not sure), whether there will be landscaping around it (there are some seasonal bulbs with the mulch there), where the footings will be (just beneath the soil), whether the visible stone will be natural (yes), what color the lettering will be (silver, matching what’s on the building now), whether they’d considered a two-sided sign that would be widely visible to both eastbound and westbound traffic on Farm (the sign is curved to follow the curbline as much as possible), how thick the letters are (about 1.5 inches), whether the lights will be low voltage (yes) and whether the new sign could be a problem for snowplows (no it’s 45 feet from the edge of the road).

Radman advised the PFA representatives to evaluate the planned lighting, saying “the light fixtures you’re proposing are fairly focused, so at night you’re going to end up with really scalloped-looking lighting.” 

He also cautioned them to avoid creating shadows behind the letters.

Wrede said that the letters “will be stud-mounted, with a half-inch offset, so they’ll be fairly close to the stones.”

“So we’re hoping there won’t be a lot of shadows,” she said.