Riverside is hoping to beautify the corner of South Harlem Avenue and Longcommon Road with new signage that could attract drivers into town from the intersection.
At the village board’s July 18 meeting, trustees discussed six options for new signage and beautification on property owned by the strip mall located at 2720-2728 S. Harlem Ave. If it is approved at a future board meeting, the new “gateway entrance” for the village could go near the shopping center’s southeast corner, where there now exists a curb cut for drivers to access Longcommon Road from the parking lot.
The new development would include a village sign attached to a pole as well as a tree and new bike racks that would block drivers from accessing the parking lot from Longcommon Road or vice versa. Instead, drivers would have to exit the lot onto South Harlem Avenue, likely taking a right turn for safety reasons, or through a back exit to the western alleyway that runs between the mall and houses on Berkeley and Longcommon roads.
The original site plan for the strip mall’s parking lot, which was expanded north last fall after the strip mall’s owner, Milad Nourahmadi, bought adjacent village property at 2710 S. Harlem Ave., did not include the back exit to the west alley. While there was not a fence there even before the village sold the land, the site plan included a fence that would have blocked access to the alley and made it difficult for cars to navigate the parking lot when full. Trustees approved changing the site plan to not include the fence at the board’s June 6 meeting despite a unanimous rejection from the planning and zoning commission in April.
As part of the purchase contract for 2710 S. Harlem Ave., Nourahmadi agreed to allow Riverside to place village signage on any part of his combined property at the strip mall.
The options for the new gateway design include some that would see one of two sizes of planter placed where the curb cut sits now. The larger planter would include the tree while the smaller planter would exclude it, leaving it to grow from a grate. At the meeting, Public Works Director Dan Tabb said a tree would likely not survive outside of the planter due to the level of salt in the ground, adding that staff would have to find a species that wouldn’t be liable to grow too large for the planter.
All but one option included green space from the sidewalk to the street with a raised curb, clearly indicating to drivers not to drive through the area. Other differences include what kind of sign is used — a horizontal “Riverside” sign or a square sign with Riverside’s logo on it — and whether the sign would be attached to a stone column or a streetscape pole, similar to light poles seen around town.
The six options range in estimated price from $96,600 to $195,870. Assistant Village Manager Ashley Monroe said funding for the project would come from fees and taxes paid by businesses in the village’s business districts.
After Monroe walked trustees through the six designs, Trustee Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga quickly raised concerns about how the new signage would compete with other signs at the intersection of South Harlem Avenue and Longcommon Road. The intersection features the Berwyn Public Library at its northeast corner, a Public Storage building at its southeast corner and a Citgo gas station at its southwest corner. The strip mall, which displays signage for its businesses, is at the intersection’s northwest corner.
“I think there’s a lot of visual competition happening there right now, and I think, whatever we do … we have to be careful that what we choose is something that will hold its own by itself for now, when we can’t do anything on the opposite side,” she said. She added she would prefer a stone column over a streetscape pole “because it seems substantial; it seems to hint that what is inside Riverside is also substantial.”
Trustee Cristin Evans raised the issue of accessing the strip mall’s parking without being able to turn left into it from Longcommon Road when heading northeast. As a frequent user of the strip mall, Evans said she would have to access the parking lot through the western alleyway or turn left onto South Harlem Avenue at the intersection and attempt to turn left again into the parking lot, though traffic on South Harlem Avenue would make the second left turn nearly impossible to complete safely. In response, Village President Doug Pollock clarified that the alley is a right-of-way that patrons of the strip mall can use to enter or exit the parking lot.
Throughout the discussion, trustees gave ideas for gateway signage they would like to see outside of the options presented. For example, Trustee Elizabeth Kos suggested writing out “Riverside” on the side of the planter rather than placing the village’s name on a sign attached to a pole.
At the end of the half-hour long discussion, Village Manager Jessica Frances suggested assembling a survey for residents to express their preferences on how the gateway signage should look. At her suggestion, the board agreed to have staff mock up several new designs to match the ones they had described that would be included on the survey. After the board reviewed the survey, Frances said staff would send it out to residents before bringing the top three choices back to the board for final approval.
The board also agreed to send the design options to Riverside’s economic development, landscape advisory and preservation commissions to give feedback without taking formal action before the board reviews the results of the survey.
While Frances first suggested creating an online survey, no such survey has appeared on Riverside’s website since the meeting.
