The Loveland City Council on Tuesday night approved a motion to amend the sign ordinance that would allow Bass Pro Shops to place several large signs near and on the 12,000-square-foot store at the intersection of Crossroads Boulevard and Interstate 25.
City staff recommended granting an exception for all but one of the signs, the words “Bass Pro Shop,” painted on the west side of the roof of the sprawling store facing the highway, which is estimated to be about 6,000 square feet.
The council deviated from the city administration’s recommendation and approved all signs, including the roof sign, by an 8-1 vote, with Councilman Steve Olson the only dissenting vote.
Kerri Burchett, city planner for the City of Loveland, expressed concern that approval of the sign, which is much larger than similar signs in the area, could set a precedent for oversized signs for businesses locating in Loveland.
She cited Dick’s Sporting Goods, which advertises its store with a 26-square-meter sign, the Blue Arena in the nearby Ranch complex, which has two signs measuring 32 and 39 square meters on its exterior, and Scheel’s Sporting Goods in Johnstown, which has an 81-square-meter sign, as comparisons.
According to Charles Hodges of Hodges Architecture, which is working on the building, the sign is on the sloped roof and is not illuminated, so it is intended to attract the attention of people driving south on I-25 and possibly encourage them to take the next exit and visit the store without being an eyesore for nearby residents.
“We’re at a pretty slanted angle,” Hodges told the council during its Tuesday night meeting. “And you can see that this sign is not an outrageous, garish statement. We think it’s critically important to us from a landmark and wayfinding perspective, and we’re proud of it.”
Additionally, he said the painted rooftop signs, a relatively new innovation in the company’s marketing, are designed to be proportional to the size of the building. Smaller stores in places like Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Altoona, Iowa, have smaller signs because the roofs of those smaller stores aren’t as big. A sign the same size as those stores on the roof of a larger store like the proposed Loveland location would look disproportionate, he argued.
“It’s a big deal, a flagship deal,” Hodges said.
Council members said they had no problem with the larger sign and agreed with city staff that the other signs Bass Pro Shops wanted to put up were acceptable. They were larger than required by the sign ordinance, but not as large as the rooftop sign and not much larger than similar signs for which there were exceptions at places like Centerra or the Promenade Shops.
“It looks proportional to me,” Mayor Jacki Marsh said of the roof sign. “I think it’s the right size for the right size building.”
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