Westfield board approves signage variance for Community Health hospital campus on East Street

The Westfield Board of Zoning Appeals on a unanimous roll call approved a variance to the city’s unified development ordinance to allow an expanded sign package for Community Health’s new hospital campus at 19900 East Street. The board’s action allows temporary construction signs, extensive wayfinding/directional signage and larger building signs than the UDO would normally permit.

Dane Crabtree of the community development department told the board the request would “waive all sign standards of the UDO and replace them with the signs included in the sign package,” and that the variance is needed because the campus layout and building scale require multiple wayfinding elements. Doug Staley of Staley Signs said the campus includes an in-use medical office building, a hospital tower and a surgery center, totaling about “500,000 square feet of space” on roughly “53 acres,” and described monument entry signs, vehicle directional signs, pedestrian signs and distinct emergency and ambulance identifiers.

Staley said temporary signage is intended to make patients aware the medical office building is open during ongoing construction; the submittal showed two temporary 8‑by‑12 signs for frontage and one 8‑by‑12 single-face sign at the East Street entrance to capture traffic and notify patients the facility is operating amid construction. He described the emergency sign as an illuminated cabinet sign with a red background and white letters and said other building signs would be internally illuminated individual letters or dual-color letters that read as black on light walls by day and white when illuminated at night.

Staff reported they had received no public comments on the petition and recommended conditions of approval listed in the staff report. After the presentation and public hearing (no in-person or emailed comments were recorded), a motion to approve item 12BS20 with the conditions in the staff report passed on a roll call. Staff later moved and the board approved findings of fact for the related staff file (referenced in the hearing materials).

What happens next: the approval grants the sign variances subject to the staff‑recommended conditions included in the board packet; any permit or final sign permits will be processed through the community development department and must comply with the conditions of approval.