Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight, or SCRUB, which is about to release a study on illegally placed billboards in West Philadelphia and the Northeast, keeps fighting those pesky out-of-towners.
The latest flap involves wall-wrap signs advertising Banana Republic (and sometimes the Gap) on the building that houses the Electric Factory, at 413-53 North Seventh Street. The building is owned by Callowhill Center Associates and the sign company that makes the giant billboards is called Metro Lights. Both are headquartered in New York. The first of several 66-by-140-foot signs was erected in late 1999 without a permit, which was later sought from L&I.
The permit was denied because the placement of the sign violated Philadelphia's zoning code. The building owners appealed to the Zoning Board, and a variance allowing the sign to stay was granted last July. The building owners testified, among other things, that "without the wrap revenue, we would not have been able to do the exterior renovations of the facade and the replacement of the windows." SCRUB protested, then went to court along with several community groups.
"The [wall wraps] are in a place that prohibits signs," says SCRUB Executive Director Mary Tracy. "When all that money was spent to put in the Vine Street Expressway, the business and historic communities considered this an important gateway into our city. To use buildings in a way that only benefits a very select group [isn't fair], and we should enforce the law. You let one sign go up and then you have everybody in the city that wants to do it."
A couple weeks ago, Common Pleas Court Judge Matthew D. Carrafiello agreed with SCRUB. Citing the building owner's attempt to call the sign a mural, and their explanation that the building needed the sign revenue to pay for vast improvement, Carrafiello called the arguments hogwash. "The numerous violations committed by the placement of the sign and the strong objections voiced by the community establish that no variance should have been granted," he wrote in a Feb. 5 opinion. So why is the sign still up? The building owners are appealing. (S.J.)