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Costco in Lehi may have looked different if design standards had been in place for commercial property a few years ago.
Lehi City now has architectural standards for commercial and business buildings within its boundaries specifying exterior building material such as stucco, wood, rockwork, setbacks and varied window dressing to minimize the big box effect of large stores.
"It would have added some things to break up the long flat services, just to give the building some character," City Planner Kim Struthers said during an interview.
Lowes, mostly stucco, would have been OK for its use of exterior materials, he said.
"It's just intended to give a little more character, more visual interest with materials," Struthers said.
Its store front may have been short on "visual interest" compared to its neighboring businesses at The Meadows in American Fork and according to the ordinance "development should be appropriate in scale, mass and proportion, and be in character with the architectural theme and color palate of significant adjacent buildings."
Up until the point of approval this month, city staff had no say about architectural design of a building and city leaders trusted on business owners and developers good will.
"This was first initiated during the down town revitalization study," Councilman Mark Johnson said at the Jan. 8 meeting. "This has been a long time coming. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it will be good for the city."
The new ordinance is not retroactive but does take effect immediately. It specifies not only architectural design but applies to the grounds as well.
"This new standard offers some flexibility," Johnson said in a later interview. "It just gives the city some control to protect value. When we went through the revitalization plan study, it was suggested and discussed that we develop an architectural standard for the whole city not just for the downtown revitalization area. Generally speaking, it's going encourage a lot more attractive architectural design." |
