When Lowe’s opens its doors later this year, it wants to make sure drivers on State Road 54 just east of Land O’ Lakes Boulevard realize it’s there.
The hardware store, now under construction in 152,000 square feet of space across from Village Lakes Shopping Center, is asking Pasco County’s Development Review Committee to allow its wall sign on the building to be more than double the size the county currently allows.
Current code limits a wall sign — that is, one that is hung on the front or side of a business — to 150 square feet. However, Lowe’s wants to build a sign on the front of its store at a little more than 375 square feet. That would make the sign nearly 19 feet tall and 20 feet long, instead of the 15 feet long and 10 feet tall usually allowed under county ordinance.
In return, Lowe’s says it’s willing to build just one sign at the road, instead of the three the county allows. Overall, that would reduce the amount of signage Lowe’s has to 37 percent smaller than what the county allows, according to records submitted to the Development Review Committee.
County officials have recommended the Development Review Committee approve the change at its Sept. 25 meeting, set to begin at 1:30 p.m., at the West Pasco Government Center, 8731 Citizens Drive in New Port Richey. The county’s Development Review Committee is led by County Administrator Michele Baker, and includes assistant county administrators Heather Grimes, Cathy Pearson and Bruce Kennedy, as well as John Walsh from the Pasco Economic Development Council, and Chris Williams from Pasco County Schools.
Lowe’s is expected to bring 125 jobs for the project, that had been planned since the North Carolina company purchase the land between Winter Quarters Pasco RV Park and the Pasco County fire station in 2005 for $2.7 million. It had originally hoped to open the store by 2009, but Lowe’s abandoned those plans in 2011 before resurrecting them earlier this year.
