OLIVO at Mission Hills, formerly Mission Hills Plaza, is a new shopping center in the San Fernando Valley. The shopping center is located at a major cross street, Devonshire, and Sepulveda, and is accessible from the 118, 405, and 5 freeways. Not only is the construction of the new shopping center alone causing attention, the traffic count on the intersection of Devonshire and Sepulveda is over 127,000 cars per day. Using signage to advertise, there is a lot of potential to draw in a lot of new customers for any business in this plaza.
A new Menchie’s was opening in OLIVO and we were contracted to permit and install the sign. This may not be common knowledge for some but all exterior signs need to be permitted by whoever is installing them, and the sign cannot be installed without a permit. We didn’t make this particular sign, but it was delivered to us after completion and we took over the job from there. If we are making the sign that needs to be permitted, we don’t start production until the permit is pulled so we can be 100% sure that the city is approving what we are making.
The sign is a front-lit channel letter sign, so it was electrical. While the store was still under construction, we went out to perform a site survey to take a look at the location and to determine how we were going to install the sign. Once we had all of the details, we prepared the sign package for the city and secured the permit.
In Los Angeles, we need to go to city hall in person with all of the needed paperwork to pull the permit. Sometimes we can get it that day, and sometimes the city requires more information or the request needs to be reviewed. It’s hard to gauge how long the permitting process will take ahead of time, but we always take the proper steps and see the project through from securing the permit to having it finalized.
Once we had the permit, we were able to install the sign. We made a pattern here at our shop for our installers to take to the location. Since the logo and the letters are separate pieces, a pattern is necessary to make sure that the spacing is exact. We hooked up the electricals that were pulled out ahead of time, and we stud-mounted the sign into the facade.
The sign looks great and is sure to attract many people to the new location.