Storefront Signs for Ohio Retail & Restaurants

What a complete storefront package includes

• Fascia identification — front-lit channel letters, halo-lit letters, dimensional non-illuminated letters, or a logo cabinet, on a raceway or flush mounted.
• A blade or projecting sign where the storefront faces a sidewalk and pedestrians need to see it from up the block.
• Window graphics — cut vinyl copy, frosted privacy bands, perforated film, and seasonal promotional graphics.
• Door signage — hours, address numerals, push/pull, and required occupancy or entrance decals.
• Awning or canopy graphics where the building already has one.
• Interior signage that carries the brand past the door — lobby logo, menu boards, department and restroom identification.

Landlord sign criteria come before the city

In most Ohio multi-tenant centers the landlord's sign criteria are stricter than the municipal code. They dictate letter height, letter style, whether the raceway is allowed and what color it must be painted, illumination type, and how far the copy must hold off the ends of the lease line. Building a sign that satisfies the city but violates the criteria means the landlord makes you take it down.

We read the criteria first, design to the tighter of the two rule sets, and produce the landlord approval package and the city submittal from the same drawings.

Ohio storefront sign permits

Sign area on a storefront is usually calculated from the width of your lease frontage, so two tenants in the same building can be allowed very different signs. The City of Columbus issues a Graphics Permit and reviews area, projection, and illumination; Dublin, Hilliard, Westerville, Grove City, Worthington, Upper Arlington, and Delaware each run their own review, several with architectural or historic design review layered on top.

Illuminated signs generally need an electrical permit as well, and a sign on a building undergoing tenant fit-out may need to be coordinated with the certificate of occupancy inspection. We pull the permits ourselves and sequence the install around approval so the sign does not go up twice.

The former tenant's sign, and the wall underneath it

Almost every storefront project starts with a removal. Taking down the previous sign exposes fastener holes, unsealed penetrations, sun-faded paint outlines, and sometimes a raceway wired to a circuit nobody documented. We remove, patch, and paint before the new sign goes up, and we reuse existing raceways and circuits when they are sound — which saves real money.

Timeline for a storefront opening

The schedule that works looks like this: survey and design first, landlord approval next, permit application after that, then roughly three to four weeks of fabrication in our shop, then install. Permit review time varies by jurisdiction and is the part nobody controls, so the earlier a sign package starts, the more slack there is before opening day.

If your opening is close, tell us the date up front. We can often stage the job — get temporary banners or window graphics up so you can open and trade while the permanent letters are still in review.