Last week, the forthcoming Subway on the corner of Oak St and Locust St. put up their famous green and yellow sign on the front of the Texas Building. We took a picture of said sign and asked your opinion about it on Facebook. The 140+ comments later, your opinion was known. Y'all didn't care much for it, and the powers that be heard your complaints. The Subway sign on the historic Texas Building is coming down, y'all. It will soon be replaced with a metallic Subway sign that better fits to the look of the historic denton square.
It can be easy to think that you don't have much say-so as far as what happens in town that's outside of your normal voting ballots. The Subway sign coming down, however, really shows that people listen. Without violent riot, protest signs, chanting in the street or passing a boycott list, the citizens of Denton have successfully had their voices heard. Well, at least a little bit.
The original Subway sign on the square really highlighted the issue of the need for a better sign ordinance for our city and it's historic buildings and this change sets a precedent for future signs in downtown.
Greg Johnson, the owner of the Texas Building, watched the local news, read your comments and made a call to Subway franchisee, Bob Suarez, to work with the wishes of Denton citizens to find a happy medium. They decided to change the look of the signage to fit with the current aesthetics of the downtown. The new Subway sign will be a painted brushed metal sign - and will look more in line with the square's more historic buildings and other signage. While it might not be very visible in the rendering below, the lack of glowing neon will surely make a large difference when viewed in person.
A rendering of what the new sign should look like.
The property is actually managed by Verus Real Estate who say that their business philosophy is to enhance, "asset values by understanding the needs of each client and applying sound fundamental principles to achieve success," and in this particular case, we'd say they have done just that. While many of the complaints we heard were about having a Subway on the square at all and not necessarily the look of the sign, keep in mind that those opinions were still heard by both the owner of the Texas Building and the franchiser of the Subway, itself.
District 1 city councilman, Kevin Roden, pushed for a review of the current sign ordinance at the city council meeting last week, the same night that the Subway sign went up. Hopefully our council will see the holes in the current ordinance and will make the appropriate changes to keep our historic buildings looking stately and historic, and prevent things like glaring neon signs from marring their facades.
Keep in mind that this is not a one time thing. Your elected leaders and the business owners in Denton listen. If you have an opinion about something, let them know. Write your city councilman or talk to business owners. Keep yourself educated on what's happening in Denton by reading our monthly Mr. Farris Goes to City Hall column and if you don't like something (or if you DO like something), make your opinion known.
The Subway on the square is set to open its doors on July 6th. We Denton Do It would personally like to thank Greg Johnson, Bob Suarez, Kevin Roden and Julie Glover for hearing the cries of the city and responding so quickly.