Cities’ Towering Signs Coming Down to Earth

A campaign by urban planners to spruce up commercial districts by removing tall signs from gas stations, banks and other roadside establishments is gradually transforming Orange County’s street scape.

Along busy thoroughfares such as La Palma Avenue, Harbor Boulevard and Bristol Street, a combination of stricter regulations, changing architectural styles and taxpayer-financed incentive programs has brought down dozens of imposing florescent and neon signs.

In their place, businesses are installing “monument signs” that are smaller than the towering “pole signs” and rise only a few feet off the ground.

“It’s like watching a baby grow up. You don’t notice the changes day to day, but over a period of time there is a drastic difference,” said Perry Valantine, Costa Mesa’s planning manager.

“If you look at Harbor Boulevard today versus 22 years ago, there is a lot less visual clutter,” he said. “You have fewer of these tall signs on the street blocking each other.”

The changes mean more than aesthetics to aging commercial corridors, city officials said.

“Streets are a city’s reputation. They say something about the community,” said La Palma Councilman Wally Linn, whose city offers businesses as much as $5,000 to replace their old markers.

“This gives our city a clean, modern look,” he said, and increases property values. “I think the pole signs are a thing of the past.”

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Others agree. In Westminster, the City Council recently adopted an ordinance requiring businesses to remove some types of pole signs within five years. Meanwhile, Anaheim is offering to help businesses replace the 1950s-style motel and restaurants markers around Disneyland as part of a $172-million redevelopment project.

Anaheim’s revitalization is designed to give a contemporary look to a district now dotted with an eclectic collection of steel and neon signs that soar high above motorists.

Their space-age design was popular in the 1950s and came to symbolize a funky form of commercial architecture known as “googie.” By the 1960s, the style had evolved into cleaner but no less eye-catching corporate logos illuminated with florescent bulbs.

The signs were hard to miss. But critics began complaining that the colorful plastics and bright neon created “visual pollution” made worse by utility poles and billboards.

Developers and government officials responded by tightening regulations and prohibiting towering beacons for new projects. Irvine banned pole signs as well as billboards in its original planning guidelines, which also require underground utilities.

Many developers now consider pole markers to be passe if not downright offensive. Upscale signage, “being an expression of high taste, never radiates light from within, in the fashion of a Gulf [oil] or Holiday Inn sign,” Joel Garreau writes in his book “Edge Cities.”

Most older cities say their replacement programs are being embraced by businesses, though some--especially corporate chains--have resisted calls to reduce their signs. A few preservationists have also decried the loss of “googie” beacons that they consider architecturally distinctive.

Despite their smaller size, monument signs can catch customers’ attention just as well as a taller marker, planners say.

“Pole signs aren’t as effective in attracting business as they used to be,” said Catherine Standiford, deputy city manager for Garden Grove, which also encourages sign modernization. “Studies have shown that signs are more visible when they are closer to ground level.”

Linn, the La Palma councilman, agrees: “You can see [pole signs] from far away. But from up close, you have to bend over and look up at them.”