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Permits Sought For Signs

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By GEORGE WILKENS The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 16, 2008

Updated: 01/14/2008 06:55 pm

TAMPA PALMS - Community supervisors have agreed to seek building permits for new decorative entry signs, an initial phase of Tampa Palms Visioning 2011.

Refurbishing four dozen monument signs at the entry to Tampa Palms Areas 1 and 2 and most of the 17 individual villages is expected to cost $1.19 million, Tampa Palms Community Development District supervisors learned at their meeting Jan. 9.

The estimate by the landscape architecture firm Hardeman-Kempton & Associates does not include landscaping and lighting the signs, costs yet to be determined.

The estimate includes $975,220 for the decorative brick signs and $33,120 for optional matching wing walls on the monuments at Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

The $1.19 million includes a contingency fund of $108,334 and an oversight allowance of $75,000.

"You just don't know what kind of fluctuations are going to come into this," said Jason Rinard, the landscape architect who made the presentation to the CDD supervisors.

The supervisors agreed to proceed with the previously approved sign design incorporating molded brick and black granite, though one supervisor expressed concern about the spiraling cost of the project.

"It's a lot of money to me," said Supervisor Bill Shimer. "This just is a very bold move. This is money we need to spend in a very judicious manner."

Generally, a person shopping for an automobile or other big-ticket item has "a feel for the cost. It's kind of backward here. I'm having a problem from where we started, and a jump now. We're probably at a million and a half now," Shimer said, estimating the additional costs for lighting the signs and landscaping around them.

Fellow supervisors, however, said improvements are needed in the 22-year-old community, and the proposed decorative signs will allow a reduction of landscaping around their bases.

Supervisor Patty Maney, a retired nursery owner who oversees plantings in the community's 127 acres of common areas, said she views ornate signs as a landscaping improvement. "It's very difficult" to grow annuals at the base of monuments, she said. "I see an attractive monument as the way to go."

Supervisor Randy Marlowe told Rinard and his boss, Ted Kempton: "I like what you've done. It looks good."

The estimate is "not an unexpected number," and the proposed improvements will last 20 years, allow for creative modern lighting and help resolve landscaping problems, Marlowe added.

Supervisors voted 4-0 to have the architects submit construction documents to the city and seek a building permit. Supervisor Andy Miller was absent.

According to the project timetable, the CDD will be ready to solicit bids for the sign work at the supervisors' meeting Feb. 13.

The design unveiled at a November meeting calls for black granite background with gold letters. Yet to be decided is whether the letters will be affixed to the granite or etched into it.

Supervisors are leaning toward light-emitting diode illumination for the signs, but a decision is pending a field demonstration.

In a related matter, supervisors approved decorative round black posts to support traffic signs along the community's boulevards and Amberly and Compton drives. The posts will be topped by a black finial bearing the community's palm tree logo.

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4847 or gwilkens@tampatrib.com.

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