I love new construction. This was an impressive development in downtown Milwaukee on the north end of the city. The designs called for a mixed use building with luxury apartments on the upper floors and retail on the ground level and a parking garage in the back half of the building. Overall, a very cool layout and very contemporary. Most of the apartments average about 900 square feet and are luxury from top to bottom.
The first time I was onsite, there still was an old bicycle repair shop on the property and a construction trailer. We went talked through the construction of the building, the materials and ultimately what they wanted from us. Our customer started with wanting standard channel letters (face lit) on the façade of the building. My question to them was why? They really didn’t know why. Isn’t that what you do with a development like this? Ah, yes. I love customers that don’t know what we can do with channel letters. I started by explaining the few different options of channel letters. From face lit to halo lit, from raceway mounting to individual mounting, we went through each. We discussed the different lighting options from neon tube to LEDs. We broke it all down so that the general contractor could present the options to the owner of the development. And the silence. A lot of silence. They went dark for almost 11 months before they contacted us and said that they were ready to move forward. Evidentially, the owner went on a mission to see every type of different channel letters he could find. When he got back, now he knew exactly what he wanted. It was decided that they wanted a halo lit channel letter, individually mounted to the façade. Beautiful. I love an informed customer. Then I threw a monkey wrench into the discussion by asking what color they wanted the lights in each letter.
The great thing about LEDs is that they last a very long time AND they come in an almost unlimited number of colors including changeable scale. That’s right. We can provide channel letters that you can program the color of the LEDs. It’s Christmas? How about red and green. It’s Halloween? How about orange. Valentines Day? Red. All programmed from a hand held remote. That closed the deal.
When we presented to the City for the permit, we had to down play the color change ability because they like one color. The letters are 48″ tall and cover over 70′ of the façade. At installation we learned a valuable lesson: just because the contractor has committed to providing access through the facade so we could run controls to each letter, that doesn’t always happen. We ended up having to rent a specialized concrete drill that can cut through reinforced concrete and rebar. Not to mention that it took a job that should have taken 3 days and turned it into 7 days. Ouch.
If you happen to have a custom channel letter need that you aren’t sure of your options, please give Optimum Signs a call at 262.289.9481 or email us at info@optimumsignswi.com. We would love to help you with your custom job.
