Comprehensive Sign Plan for Downtown Redevelopment Approved

The Kent Planning Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a comprehensive sign plan for two of the buildings in the city's downtown redevelopment project.

Fairmount Properties presented a sign plan for buildings "A" and "B," which have addresses at 295 and 215 S. Water St. and 100 E. Erie St.

Norman Elbin, director of tenant coordination for Fairmount Properties, said the sign plan addresses how and where both the retail and commercial tenants advertise themselves on the buildings.

"We put together a sign plan that we believe gives tenants some design latitude to create individual identity but also to control various aspects, such as the maximum size they can use, where they actually put their signs and how they illuminate the signs," Elbin said.

Within the past few years, the city amended its zoning and building codes to require a comprehensive sign package for a development project. The intent was to have developers integrate the project's various tenant signs into the design of the structures with "a unified architectural statement," according to city officials.

The Kent Architectural Review Board issued a "certificate of appropriateness" for the sign package at its May meeting.

Adam Branscomb, a development manager at Fairmount Properties, said the sign package approved Tuesday by the commission only addresses buildings and which have corporate anchor tenants Davey Resource Group and AMETEK, respectively.

Branscomb said Fairmount will return to the planning commission to amend the sign package when construction starts on building "C," a mostly residential building slated for the southwest corner of the Erie and South DePeyster streets intersection.

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