Design Review Committee Approves NYO Signage
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The city’s Design Review Committee approved a 2.5-story temporary sign Tuesday for NYO Property Group, about a month after the company placed the sign on one of its buildings.
The sign, which measures 15 feet wide by 30 feet high, hangs at the top of the Legal Arts Building’s southern face, toward the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge, and markets commercial and residential properties downtown. The sign had been installed about a month ago, around the date of the committee’s previous meeting, said Bill D’Avignon, director of community development and planning for the city, chairman and secretary of the committee. He subsequently contacted the company about needing to get permission for the sign.
NYO is the developer of Erie Terminal Place. The company also is working on converting the Wick Building into apartments. Its other downtown properties include the Realty Tower, the 16 Wick Building and the Metropolitan Savings and Loan Building, where First National Bank of Pennsylvania is located.
When contacted, a company representative did not indicate why NYO hadn’t sought prior permission for the sign but said it would submit an application immediately, D’Avignon said.
The company is “trying to get people to be interested in downtown,” said Patricia Loncar, NYO’s bookkeeper. Loncar attended Tuesday’s meeting in place of Dominic Marchionda, NYO’s CEO, who was unable to attend the meeting.
D’Avignon said the sign is similar to other signs downtown, including one approved by the committee last year for the Youngstown Business Incubator touting its selection as one of the best university-affiliated incubators in the world.
“It’s not a bad-looking sign and it does promote the downtown area,” said architect Bill DeFrance, a committee member. “It’s really not a deviation from what we’ve approved in the past.”
Loncar was unable to provide an intended timeframe for the temporary signage, although she believed the timing as intended to coincide with the Wick Building’s redevelopment, so the committee settled on a six-month limit. If NYO needs to go beyond that, the company can request an extension.
Ray DeCarlo, zoning specialist, was also directed to have NYO get a permit for the sign.
Additionally, the committee discussed a sign at an auto sales and service business located at 543 Market St. The sign obscures a mural painted last summer on the southern face of the former Gollan’s Honda building, 519 Market St., at the southern tip of the Veterans Bridge. Commissioned by Richard Billak, founder and former CEO of Community Corrections Association, the mural greets visitors to downtown Youngstown and highlights the downtown entertainment district.
The fence surrounding the business was approved but the sign wasn’t, DeCarlo said. He was directed to notify the property owners.
“We’ll work with them on a new sign but they have to respect what’s going on in their own neighborhood. It really blocks that nice mural,” DeFrance said.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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