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Politics & Government

Office Depot Sign Decision Tabled for Second Straight Meeting

The decision over whether to allow Evanston's Office Depot to build two new illuminated signs that exceed City limitations was deferred again at Thursday night's Sign Review and Appeals Board meeting.

Residents seeking closure on whether or not Evanston’s Office Depot will be allowed to build two new illuminated signs that exceed city limitations will have to attend at least one more meeting after the Sign Review and Appeals Board tabled the issue Thursday night for the .

The decision was postponed again at the board's monthly meeting after Office Depot representatives failed to comply with to create and present blueprints or visuals illustrating what the proposed signs would look like if designed in compliance with the city’s ordinance.

Office Depot seeks to construct northward and eastward facing signs displaying the company’s logo at the recently renovated 2722 Green Bay Road store. At last month’s meeting, company representatives discussed several options for signage of varying letter height and overall height, though in all proposals overall height exceed the 15 foot 6 inch limit set forth in Section 4-12-9 of the Evanston City Code.

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Several residents from the neighborhood surrounding the store expressed dissatisfaction, saying that Office Depot has made no effort to comply with city ordinances and has attempted to circumvent necessary steps in the sign approval process. At least two such speakers made reference to Section 4-12-17 of the Evanston City Code, which states that “variations shall only be approved to overcome an exceptional condition” that, among other standards, is unique (not merely serve as a convenience to the applicant), is not self-created, and does not harm public welfare.

Saul Wexler of Woodbine Ave. said that Office Depot has failed to address any of these standards.

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“The burden is on the applicant to show why they cannot possibly comply with the ordinance,” Wexler said. “In my view, they are in direct defiance in ignoring the committee’s mandates ... to submit plans of why they can’t comply. And I think that demonstrates that Office Depot has a certain disdain for this ordinance.”

Randy Otte, who at last month’s meeting presented the board with a 150-signature petition from neighborhood residents, said he agreed.

“I haven’t seen anything in compliance,” Otte said. “The board requested and the neighbors were expecting [a design] in compliance. … We bought our house on Woodbine 32 years ago knowing … that there were City ordinances that protected us from intrusion into the residential area.”

Office Depot representative Rosalyn Holderfield said if the eastward facing sign were in compliance for overall height, that the letters would “dangle off of the recess portion” and that “Office Depot would quite simply not allow me to present that.”

Board chair Marnie Kadish countered that there was no reason to approve an ordinance violating sign on the building’s east side and said that sign’s letter height would likely have to be changed from 4 feet to 2 feet 6 inches.

“I’m not going to speak for the whole board, but I’m looking for some sort of compromise here,” Kadish said. “We may have to grant you variance on the north face because you have a clear structural issue there, but on the east face I don’t see a reason for it.”

Near the end of the discussion, Holderfield said that her failure to produce the requested documents was simply a mistake.

“Probably last month I wasn’t taking enough proper notes,” Holderfield said. “There were a lot of ideas last month. There was a lot of going back and forth, a lot on the table.”

Holderfield has been asked again by the board to return with visual representations of ordinance-complying signs, studies to show how sign size might affect visibility, and data to determine what loss on return a smaller or less-visible sign might cause.

James Kosh, another Office Depot representative and a longtime Evanston resident, expressed his commitment to both working with the community and pushing for the company’s best interests.

“We want to be viable in the neighborhood, and we want to be visible, but we don’t want to be overly visible and upset anything about the local surroundings,” Kosh said. “But we need to attract more than just local traffic to stay here.”

The Sign Review and Appeals Board will reconvene July 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Meeting Room 2404 of the Lorriane H. Morton Civic Center.

Decisions made by the board are final and do not require City Council approval unless appealed.

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