Planning commission approves Culver's shared monument sign on Gender Road

The Canal Winchester Planning and Zoning Commission on Sept. 8 approved Variance VA-25-009 to allow a multi-tenant, off-premise monument sign serving a Culver’s restaurant at 6480 Gender Road and a vacant 1.62-acre outparcel fronting Gender Road.

The variance permits a 10-foot-tall, 6-foot-wide sign with a display area under 48 square feet to sit on the 1.62-acre outparcel so the Culver’s location has frontage visibility on Gender Road. The commission approved the variance with two staff conditions: (1) no additional monument sign may be installed on either the 3.11-acre Culver’s parcel or the 1.62-acre outparcel, and (2) the monument sign must be constructed with a neutral background color (white, tan or gray).

Staff planner Andrew Moore told the commission the subject property consists of two parcels created from a 4.7-acre flag-lot split and that the sign code would otherwise push the sign location away from Gender Road. Moore said staff had suggested a variance to allow the shared monument sign to reduce total signage along Gender Road.

Trey Watts of Springfield Sign, representing Culver’s franchising, said the applicant is comfortable with a shared sign and with changing the proposed Culver’s-blue background to a neutral tone to make a future tenant panel blend. Watts said the tenant panel would be blank for now and that internal wiring would be installed so a future tenant could use an opaque face with push-through acrylic lettering to match the main sign.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the variance. Roll-call votes recorded the following positions: Donahue — yes; McDonald — yes; Palsgrove — yes; Ritchie — yes; Wildenthal — yes; Deeds — yes.

Because the sign meets the city’s size and complex-identification sign standards and the applicant agreed to the staff conditions, the commission described the change as allowing shared, multi-tenant signage rather than an additional freestanding sign on either parcel.