JCPenney representatives say that the department store is spending more than $500,000 refreshing its location at the Mall at Wellington Green, including bold exterior signage — unfortunately, parts of the project were already completed before asking village officials to approve the changes.
Store representatives lacked proper awareness of local regulations, they told Wellington’s Architectural Review Board at a meeting held Wednesday, Aug. 28.
“I’m just curious to see, you guys are a big corporation. You understand things on a very local level. How does something like this happen?” Board Member John Greene asked. “You come in, you make these bold changes to a storefront in a community like Wellington, without knowing that, ‘Oh, I guess I need approval for this.’”
In the end, the board voted 4-0 to postpone the matter to a future meeting while options are studied. Board members Maria Wolfe, Sal Van Casteren and Luis Rodriguez did not attend the meeting.
Among other issues, the building sign comes with raised white letters on a dark gray background, about 50 percent larger than Wellington normally allows, according to village staff.
Local store officials at the meeting referred questions about how the mix-up happened to corporate offices, but said the redesign was consistent with others happening at stores throughout the region and a sign of revitalization across the nationwide chain.
JCPenney has remained a longtime anchor at the mall despite the chain’s filing for bankruptcy in 2020 and closing a number of stores nationwide, blamed in part on the pandemic. Greene praised the Wellington store’s “great staying power” even as he raised concerns about the matter at hand.
Another question involved red paint around the entrances, which staff said was “close to” a color the village has approved, but it was for doors.
Board Member Maria Raspanti argued for letting the store’s choices stand, because it fits the chain’s new look.
“I personally am fine with it,” Raspanti said.
She made a motion to approve the application, but it was not seconded and failed.
“I know the village spends a lot of time and money making sure we’ve got colors and a look that is compatible throughout not just the mall site but the community,” said Greene, a former member of the Wellington Village Council. “It’s a tough pill for me to swallow from a compatibility standpoint.”
A justification statement from the company said, “JCPenney is refreshing the interior and exterior of the store with a budget of over $500,000. The scope will include fresh interior white paint, updates to fitting rooms and interior spaces, and alignment with the company’s nationwide color scheme. The exterior of the building was already painted to the provided scope, as JCPenney was not aware of the ARB process or the paint color requirements.”
Village staff recommended either the background to the big wall sign go back to the same off-white color as the rest of the building, or the dark background color known as Benjamin Moore Iron Mountain be reduced to 200 square feet from an estimated 300.
But there are problems with that, observed Board Chair Stacy Somers. “If we strip away the gray, I feel like this white lettering is going to kind of fade into this beige background,” Somers said.
The white letters are ringed in black, staff noted.
Alternatively, a tightened box of gray around the white letters could look out of scale, some worried.
Any changes the board might decree could cost the store money. On the other hand, simply allowing what is there now makes it harder to deny other stores similar leeway, or perhaps even encourages future applicants to plead ignorance, make changes first and seek permission later.
In other action, the board approved updates to the Lazy Dog restaurant plans for the Lotis development on the west side of State Road 7, north of Forest Hill Blvd. Among them were reducing the prominence of an architectural tower in the planned restaurant’s profile and adding wood backing to building signs amid a surrounding stone surface.
