TURLOCK NOW: Freeway sign size questioned

Proposed freeway sign compared to existing Monte Vista Crossing sign

TURLOCK - Size matters to the Turlock Planning Commission when it comes to a freeway signs.

The commission asked the developers of a large new commercial welcome sign at the West Main Street exit to downsize its plans at its monthly meeting last week. The proposed sign would be a new multitenant 85-foot-tall, 38-foot-wide structure to replace the existing Days Inn sign.

But planning commissioners expressed concern at its size, particularly the space used to advertise each business. The commission asked the developer, Bay Area-based New Urban Communities Partners, to bring the sign size more in line with existing commercial structures like those by Monte Vista Crossing and Countryside Plaza.

Turlock Deputy Director of Development Services Debbie Whitmore said the commissioners favored per-tenant signs closer to the 10-foot by 10-foot size than the proposed 12-foot by 12-foot size. They also asked that there be at least six tenants on the sign; the original proposal had options ranging from four to nine tenants.

“What they had proposed, their first preference, would be about double the (per tenant sign) size of what we currently see along the freeway,” Whitmore said. “The idea was to get in line more with signs see already and have been approved.”

The height of the sign would remain the same but Whitmore said commissioners wanted the structure’s width to come down thanks to smaller business signs. The private developer, who is working in conjunction with Days Inn, will come back with a new proposal at the commission’s April meeting.