The village of Brookfield has the opportunity to set an example for commercial property owners throughout town whose buildings still bear the signs of long-shuttered businesses.
Sometime this spring, the village plans on contacting those owners to begin taking down “zombie” signs that have lived on far past the death dates of the businesses they advertise.
It just so happens that the village of Brookfield itself owns one of the longest undead signs – over at the Brookfield Bowl on Maple Avenue just north of Eight Corners. The business has been closed for six years, and the village has owned the property, which it hopes some brave soul will redevelop, since 2014.
Perhaps the village’s own experience in taking down that sign will also give officials a sense of the challenges other property owners face when removing old signs. Some, like the nearby Harps Realty signs on Eight Corners, are rather large and would likely be expensive to remove.
Still the ideas of getting these signs removed and then tackling the issue of signs of existing business that are in poor shape are good ones. We’ll be interested to see how the village serves as an example for the rest of the commercial property owners moving forward.
