HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-04-01 MinutesBoard of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 1 MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF SIGN APPEALS A regular meeting of the Board of Adjustment was held on Monday, April 1, 2002 at 4:15 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN SNA 02-1.00: Sign Appeal (WRMS Medical Park, pp 250) Approved Page 2 MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT Marion Orton James Kunzelmann Joanne Olszewski Michael Andrews Michael Green STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Dawn Warrick David Whitaker Mike McKimmey Tim Conklin Renee Thomas Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 2 ROLL CALL: Upon the completion of roll call, four members were present with Mr. Green being absent. SNA 02-1.00: Sign Appeal (WRMS Medical Park, pp 250) was submitted by Jack Morris of Washington Regional Medical System for property located north of Appleby Road and west of North Hills Boulevard. The request is for two 51 sq.ft. wall mounted signs (35 sq.ft. variances), five 10 sq.ft directional monument signs (6 sq.ft. variances), four 7.375 sq.ft. directional monument signs (3.375 sq.ft. variances), five 18 sq.ft. building entry signs (2 sq.ft. variances), and four additional building entry signs. Orton: I will open a meeting for the Board of Sign Appeals. We have one item on the agenda, which is a very interesting item. Are you going to give the staff report? McKimmey: I am staff for this item. I would like to allow them to use their setup easel and get prepared for the presentation that they would like to make to you. I would like to say hello. I am Mike McKimmey, I am the Sign Inspector for the City. It has been a long time since I have had an opportunity to address the board and this is a wonderful opportunity to bring a really good one to you. Let me give you the background on this. This is for the new Washington Regional Medical Systems signage package, the way finding signage package that they describe. It is a very complicated variance request. It has a lot of caveats and things that we have maneuvered through to make the variance as minimal as possible. Staff supports the variance very strongly on the basis of the public's need to know wherever they are going to when they go to the hospital and so I will preface my first remarks with that statement. I highly recommend this. There is a chart in the back which will outline the variance request. You will see each one of these in the variance request column on this campus signage spreadsheet. That would be page 1.8. The first two items on there are wall mounted signs. They are 51 sq.ft. requested, a 35 sq.ft. variance required. The property is zoned R -O on the south end of the property. It is zoned C- 1 on the north end. It is a fascinating issue that we have such a large project in an R - O so that is the primary reason for a lot of this signage variance request. There are various directional signs and I will go through the front here and list it all out for the record. The property is bounded on the east by North Hills Blvd., on the south by Appleby Road, on the north by Futrall Drive. It is a 10 %Z acre tract, it is zoned R -O on the south end, C-1 on the north. All the requested variances are located within the R -O portion. The Overlay District effects only the C-1 portion of the property and will not bare upon the variance request. At its previous location Washington Regional Medical Center enjoyed the benefits of being sited on property which was owned by the county, thus being a jurisdiction of higher authority fell outside of our signage regulations. That has changed. They have followed my recommendations, Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 3 there are a number of them. They want two wall signs requiring a variance of 35 sq.ft. each. They do not need a variance for their monument sign, which will be located on the C-1 portion of the lot. They request several directional monument signs to direct citizens to various venues such as the emergency room, the women's center, whatever it might be. They need enough square footage to be able to get there, see it from the car. They are requesting five 10 sq.ft. display surface area monument signs. The rest of them are monument signs, each of them are given 4 sq.ft. in the R -O zoning. The ordinance gives one per entrance and exit and so some will require, and they are outlined here whether they will require additional variances and from what particular section. At this point, before we go very far into listing all of the directional signs I would like to offer our applicants a chance to make a presentation they have worked on. Orton: That is fine. Light: Good afternoon, my name is Todd Light, I am the Environmental Graphic Designer with the architectural firm, HKS in Dallas, Texas. I want to thank you all very much for your time this afternoon and for the opportunity to speak on behalf of this project for Washington Regional Medical Center. The new medical facility is going to be a 365,000 sq.ft. state of the art medical facility on a stand alone campus. It is going to be a unique project for the city of Fayetteville. It is unique in a number of ways. First of all, for the large scale of both the campus and the facility itself. For the importance in the wide range of services that it offers to the community and then also it is very unique because I feel that this project has the potential to touch the lives of each of the citizens of Fayetteville and of the surrounding communities. It has the opportunity to touch their lives by being a direct provider of health care and being a major employer in the area. As I am sure we have all experienced, going to a medical facility can be a very stressful experience. If you are a patient going for a procedure, if you have anxiety over the whole process you are going to be going through, whether you are a family member of a patient, it is all a very stressful anxiety provoking experience. Washington Regional recognizes that this is true and that the stress can be compounded by the experience of going to a large facility of this sort. If you are going and you are unsure of where it is you are going within the facility, if you are confused by the layout and you don't have information at your disposal it can compound the stress that you are feeling. The scale of this facility is going to be, as I said, unique in Fayetteville. Because of that, a lot of people here will not have had an opportunity to interact with a project of that size. Again, that can introduce stress into their visit experience. The sign proposal that you have before you is a commitment by Washington Regional Medical Center to provide the very best upfront experience for the patient and the people visiting the site. Providing that best experience before they ever get to meeting with the medical staff. Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 4 I have a site plan here, the north of the property is here at the Expressway, to the east we have North Hills Blvd. south is Appleby Road. The public streets are in the light gray, the internal circulation streets are in the darker gray and then the building is in brown here. This is really a very complicated and a very large campus. We have multiple entry points, we have four different entry points for the public onto the campus. Once you have gotten around there are five public entry points into the facility itself. Our goals as designers, as way finding graphic designers, are to help the public recognize the property as they are approaching it, understand and find the best entry point for their visit onto the property, help them navigate the property and get to the best parking space and ultimately to the best entry point into the building for their ultimate destination within the building. For example, if someone is coming to the new Women's Center over on the west side of the building it is not going to be a very good experience for them if they end up at the emergency entrance on the east side of the building because then they either have to get back in their car and go around or they have to walk through the building, which is a long journey because of the size of the building. What we can do as designers is put in place information at all the decision making points along the way. These red circles that you see all around the campus plan here are decision making points. A person has to decide as they are approaching do they turn left, do they tum right, do they go into the first entry point that they come to or do they go further on to another one and then once they are circulating in the property, say at this main entry point or main circulation point do they go left, straight ahead or right. This is why we put together a comprehensive package of sign types. I would like to discuss just for a moment who is going to be visiting the site on a daily basis and how many people we are expecting. Currently at the Washington Regional Medical Center in town on an outpatient basis, people coming in just for a procedure for that day, they have 215 patient visits per day. For inpatients, on an average they have 126 patients per day. We have six babies born on an average per day. Very importantly, visits to the emergency room, they average 125 each day. When you total it up it comes up to about 450 patients on a daily basis each and every day. We are expecting with the opening of the new medical facility to increase that by 10% in the first year. At the end of the first year we are going to have about 500 patients on a daily basis. I don't want you to think of that number as just an abstract number. If 500 individuals, maybe they are your neighbor, they are your friends, they are your family that are coming to this campus and we need to provide them with very clear directional identification and information to get them to their destination. Also, people come to the property with impairments, whether it is a physical impairment such as limited mobility or limited eyesight or a cognitive impairment, maybe a learning disability or a temporary disability of anxiety or stress that they may be feeling because of the procedure that they are going to be having. We also have taken into consideration the fact that 23% of patients are 65 years and older and they have special needs and Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 5 many of them will have impairments, quite often vision impairments. That is very important while we look at designing signs and letter sizes and what is required for that. As I mentioned before, what we can do is to create a program that will assist the visitor and help reduce stress and make this their visit a very calming and enjoyable one for them when they are coming to Washington Regional Medical Center. What we can do is put together a very comprehensive, concise and easily read system of information at each of those decision making points that I mentioned along the site. That is what we are doing here. We have two types of signs that we are showing. The first type is identification, this is the hospital logo on two building facades, building mounted signs and these are to help identify the building from a distance as you are approaching. It also provides reassurance that "Yes, I am getting close to it, it is just over there, I will just continue down the road here." Once they get to the main intersection at the corner of North Hills and the Expressway outer road, Futrall, we have the property monument identity. Again, this provides reassurance, it provides that "Yes, this is Washington Regional Medical Center." It is sized so that it is very readable from that intersection from all three directions that you are arriving from. We also have identity at the five building entry points and we are proposing a monument for each of those to see how the design is integrated so that we get a nice graphic quality and look for the property that is fair in keeping with the quality of the building and design. We are identifying whether it is the Women's Center, whether it is an Emergency, the main entrance admitting, then we also have the Heart and Vascular Institute. Each one of these would be identified and those would be positioned so that as you are driving up the main drive for each of the centers that this would be very visible both for vehicular traffic and then after you have parked for pedestrian traffic also. The other type of information we would be providing is directional information. As you can see in the package and on these boards, we have three sizes of signs. The most important information that we can provide in a hospital setting is directions to the Emergency Room. As you can see, we have highlighted that graphically with the red background. Labor and Delivery is also a very critical destination and so we have highlighted that one also. We have kept the information very concise and provided a higher level of information, giving you just enough information at each decision making point to get you to the next decision making point and help the visitor move efficiently around the property. That is the approach that we have taken to this project. I did want to mention that this is comparable to other projects that we have done around the country. This is a project I had done in Laredo, Texas for Mercy Health Center. We had, just to give you some comparisons, because these facilities are comparable in size and they are stand alone campuses. We had three building mounted logos, identity monument, five driveways onto the property, we had five driveway i.d. monuments. We actually had a total of 44 directional signs around the property because it had a circular driveway that was very confusing. We had five public entries into the building and Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 6 McKimmey: Andrews: McKimmey: Andrews: McKimmey: Andrews: five entry monuments. This is a project we had done in Fredericksburg, VA for Mary Washington Hospital. Because of the situation we didn't have any building mounted logos but we did have two very large campus identity monuments on the perimeter of the property. We had five driveways and five large directional signs into the property and then twenty additional directional signs. We had three public entrances and three public entrance monuments. Finally, this is a project you may be familiar with. This is just down the street from you in Fort Smith. It is for Saint Edward Mercy Medical Center. This was a temporary sign program that we put together for them while they are doing some renovation and building before they put in a new system in place. Again, it had building mounted logos, we had a major identity monument, four driveways, we had directional at each of those driveways. We also had secondary and tertiary directional, such as this on the site. We had six public entrances into the building and six entry monuments. You can see that what we are proposing here is comparable to what is the standard for this type of facility. I do want to mention that this program is a proven formula for helping to reduce stress and anxiety for the visitor. I think that this sign project is essential to the success of the campus and the use by the citizens of Fayetteville and I would be very happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. The summary of exemptions are found on page 1.2. The variance requests are laid out as they are requesting 15 directional signs, two 51 sq.ft. wall signs, they will need a 35 sq.ft. variance for each wall sign. Nine of the directional signs will require variances from the specified 4 sq.ft. limit. Five require a 6' variance, four require a 3.375 sq.ft. variance. All are monument type and all are associated with an entrance or an exit as required. They have also requested five building entry monument signs and they require a variance for four additional signs on the lot. A variance of 2 sq.ft. for each of the five would be required. At the bottom of page 1.8 you have requesting approval for an additional four building entry signs, is that something that we are considering? Yes Sir. That would be if you will see on page 1.3, that is in the discussion section there. I said they are requesting five building entry monument signs and they are allowed one so they will need a variance for four additional and a 2' variance for all five. Ok, so those are the E6. Those are the ones that name the building in the centers and sides of the building. Ok, I understand. Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 7 Orton: This is so much beyond what our ordinance deals with. It kind of reminds me a little bit about the medical center just across from there when they had too many signs and so forth. I think it is very hard to even try to compare this with our ordinance. This is not, well it is a business in one way, but it is not a commercial business where somebody is trying to put in a lot of signs in order to attract more business. It is just a different sort of situation. I can't see the problem with it. Kunzelmann: This is exactly the reason why strict enforcement would be unreasonable. If I need to go to the hospital I want to get where I'm going. I have looked through this, it is very clear. Nothing here seems to be unreasonable, they are attractive signs. Olszewski: Is there anyone in the audience that has anything to say? Orton: Andrews: Kunzelmann: McKimmey: Light: Kunzelmann: Orton: Motion: Andrews: Kunzelmann: Is there anyone in the audience who would like to comment on this? This scale is so beyond anything that we deal with and we appreciate your work. I think this has been very well laid out and organized and I appreciate that very much for being so concise and clear in all of your work that you have done. You've done a very good job. In looking through here I see nothing extra that has just been frivolously thrown in or that is not really necessary to finding your way around the campus area. The sizes of the signs are not unreasonable, they are large enough to be read but not so large that they would be intrusive or unattractive. There wasn't a single thing that jumped out at me as something that was unreasonable in your request. I have one question, how are the signs to be lighted? They have done a super job at describing not only the lighting, but the kinds of lights. It is all indirect lighting. Ok. It will be interesting to see how it all works out. Is there a motion? I will move that we pass the appeal as submitted. I second. Board of Sign Appeals April 1, 2002 Page 8 Orton: Ok, are there any other comments? Will you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon completion of roll call the motion to pass the appeal for SNA 02-1 was approved by a vote of 4-0-0. Orton: It is exciting, we are glad you are here working on it. There was one other thing, that is this meeting on Friday. Warrick: The Board of Adjustment training is being offered in Hot Springs on Friday. It will be a day long program that will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and this is the first time it is being offered and I am going to be down there assisting with the training as is Shelli Rushing, one of our Associate Planners and one of the Planners from Little Rock and one of the Planners from Arkadelphia will be presenting our training program. Andrews: Take all of that information, condense it down to about two hours and lets go to lunch. Warrick: It is a day long, lunch is provided and there are case study activities and a mock hearing and you get to meet other Board of Adjustment members throughout the state so it is a worthwhile day and we are willing to pay registration for any of you who wish to attend. That program will also be offered in the fall. We don't know where yet, that hasn't been set but I will let you know just as soon as I do. Orton: If anyone is able to go let Dawn know. The meeting is adjourned. Meeting adjourned: 4:40 p.m.