I wrote an article in the August edition of NWCCOG eNews about Grand Adventure Brewing that reveals a proprietor who opened for business to become a community anchor. Kremmling concurs because “Brewery” is already on a wayfinding sign in the center of town. Kremmling is unusual in its wayfinding signs by pointing out businesses by name.
Kremmling, like a number of Grand County towns as well as Silverthorne also has distinctively attractive town monument signs built by Lunsford Signs of Hot Sulphur Springs. Attractive signage is a big deal to small towns.
Entering a town, such signage shows a community’s self-respect, and further wayfinding signs usually proudly point toward major public investments—schools, libraries, parks, town hall.
Not all town leaders embrace the fact that the self-respect part goes for business signage as well. Sign codes attempt to put some of the same care and design continuity into business signage. Though everything about sign code feels like “government red tape” when you get into the details and add an enforcement layer. On the other hand, there is no quicker way to cheapen an otherwise attractive corridor than with signage.
Because sign codes are about regulation as much as curation, they may be the top frustration of local businesses with city hall. The courts have dealt a blow putting sign codes into question with Reed v Town of Gilbert Arizona that has not come to roost in most places. Turns out freedom of speech isn’t just about political signs and opinions. A decade ago as a mayor before the Reed decision, I was all about rigorous sign code as a civic branding tool. I was also in full alignment with not promoting businesses with public signage other than “Central Business District.” Even after investing $5M in a streetscape there, I felt the business side was “the private sector’s job.” Seeing how Kremmling is “all-in” with promoting businesses by name with public wayfinding signs, I’m thinking again.
Most of our Western Slope towns have far too many businesses to promote all of them with public signage. It would be an equity nightmare, and probably a waste of effort in the era of smartphone navigation. I’m not sure how Kremmling complies with CDOT guidelines, but as I learned with Town of Eagle wayfinding signs which we wanted to be a little different on Hwy 6 many years ago, sometimes you just have to keep asking why and why not (and looking for examples of other places in the state that have done what you want).
It may seem unrelated but in our infinite wisdom back then, we also didn’t allow neighborhoods to have entry signage when I was mayor, so while I am appalled that my own subdivision which has a commercial district and many publicly owned amenities as well as unique private community anchors such as a theater just installing a massive monument sign on the edge of town, I also understand why it was put there. It sits at the entry to a district that many who drive by don’t know is there. That it whispers “town of eagle” and “cinema” and shouts “EAGLE RANCH” just doesn’t feel right to me.
When we approved the “Eagle Ranch” subdivision we were very conscious of not bifurcating town but understood that banding and marketing were very important to the developer. This translated to a nice Norman Rockwell approach leveraging all of the Pre-WWII housing, street grid and park amenities so beloved in Eagle to sell Eagle Ranch. Much to my chagrin, today as it nears build-out, many new residents in Eagle Ranch self-identify as living in “Eagle Ranch” rather than Eagle. In fact, today there is a magazine called “The Life” that exclusively covers the wealthier half of town defined by the subdivision, and rigorously not the other, highlighting families and social opportunities… and not so subtly marking socio-economic boundaries in the process.
Observing how dependent Western Colorado towns are on the success of community anchors, public or private, my perspective on “public” right of way business signage has shifted. I’m OK that the new monument directs visitors to “Cinema” and “Dining.” I’m just embarrassed that the subdivision name is in block letters—it has the whiff of “I’m better than you.” It also announces entry to a confused town named Eagle Ranch from the West and Town of Eagle at Interstate 70. I am also fiercely proud of Eagle’s $23M round-a-bout entry project from Interstate 70 that ties into the Broadway streetscape architectural language. The Eagle Ranch sign also ignores that pattern language. So, I’m a reverse socio-economic snob, I guess in wanting to emphasize the town we all share over the subdivision that wants to be a gilded snowflake.
With all that said, progressive towns realize that some of the public-private separations, (other than the obvious ethics issues) have given way to recognition of how success of public and private interests is intertwined. Towns want businesses to be found. Sales tax pays bills and builds amenities. Businesses leverage quality places that have the self-respect to have high expectations with strong amenity bases. As I have lamented elsewhere, visitors can be ruthlessly savvy consumers of place. I can’t be the only one who notices such things as signage. The classic way to do that is to focus on improving the right of way, making navigation of streets as simple and coherent as possible. Which also implies just the right amount of public signage.
We heard how towns are warming to their place in economic development at our recent NWCCOG Economic Development summit. Something interesting is happening — some of those private institutions are slowly, quietly being recognized as community anchor institutions, and some towns are embracing that. In Kremmling they are literally pointing the way to their newest business.
Neighborhood “entry” or monument signs probably denote status to some, especially when they are so impressively built in stone, most neighborhood signage across the country pronounces a kind of civic decay. They are like discarded “for sale” signs left too long in place.
Perhaps there is irony in my feeling so strongly about the importance of marking entry to one’s town while feeling so strongly against similarly marking entry to one’s neighborhood. Other than having to wait cumulative hours of my life back when I was a carpenter behind gates in Beaver Creek and Cordillera before being allowed let in to build homes, and the cumulative years since that I’ve invested in public service, I’m not precisely sure why the unit of identification matters so much.
I thought America was defined as to not be a place where class, bloodline privilege and land ownership defined access to opportunity and happiness. Yeah, that monument sign evokes all of that for me, the Revolutionary War, the aristocracy, Pip. It is just interesting at what level your community identity thrives. For me, it is at the municipal level which may be too abstract for those who self-identify even more closely with their neighborhood.
