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Ad-Vice’s Mall-Monument Sign Sees Orange

Project reflects on Inland Empire’s orange-growing history

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Located in the western corner of Southern California’s Inland Empire, a region equidistant between Los Angeles and San Diego, Murrieta nearly doubled its population from 2000 to 2010 (the last Census reported the city has more than 103,000 residents). Thus, opportunities for economic growth have been abundant. Commercial developer Allan Davis and his firm, Retail Development Advisors (RDA), spearheaded the creation of Murrieta’s The Orchard at Stone Creek, an approximately 40-acre, 440,000-sq.-ft. development with an array of big-box outlets, department stores, restaurants and complementary shops.

RDA enlisted FRCH Design (Cincinnati) to create the property’s design intent. Prior to Murrieta’s burgeoning development, the bucolic town had been replete with orange groves; the property’s material choices, color palette and typography reflect its legacy. RDA and FRCH outlined a sign-standards manual that, while inclusive of various materials and fabrication techniques, adhered to consistent aesthetic standards.

Ad-Vice Studios (Mechanicsville, VA) signed a design/build agreement with RDA to produce the property’s gateway and architectural signage. David Goodwin, the company’s president, said, “The client wanted the signs to look like they had been part of a 1930s orange grove. Weathered steel, fabricated-aluminum slats and galvanized steel were materials we used to help create this atmosphere. The signs’ brand identity had to match the surrounding architecture. These signs have the unique ability to never wear out or degrade. The longer they exist, the more believable they look.”

Ad-Vice’s sign complement entails three gateway signs, two entry features, six directional displays, two multi-tenant signs, and several regulatory markers. For the 45 x 27-ft. gateway signs, Ad-Vice fabricated the main faces with corrugated panels fashioned from thin-gauge steel, which it MIG-welded in-shop. The shop’s production team also created a faded-orange hue that reflects the color scheme, and a rusty patina that emulates an aging barn or produce-processing plant. To do so, they applied a Matthews acrylic-polyurethane basecoat, and then, lifted into place in a bucket truck, used a dry-brush technique to develop the faux finish.

On the sign’s flank, Ad-Vice accented the motif with welded-aluminum ribs nestled within the signs’ frames. The shop also fabricated the weathered-steel gridwork on the building facades and the gateway signs’ flagstone ledges. The channel letters comprise Plexiglas® impact-modified-acrylic faces, illuminated with white SloanLED modules. Ad-Vice decorated the second-surface layer with blue 3M Scotchcal vinyl. WLS Lighting (Ft. Worth, TX) provided the halogen-lighting fixtures that shine on the gateway signs, and Ad-Vice MIG-welded the gooseneck fixtures in-house.

Goodwin said shipping proved challenging: “To ship the sections safely, we couldn’t fabricate pieces larger than 10 ft. tall. But, some sections were 5 ft. deep. Also, the client insisted on no butt seams or exposed fasteners. So, we had to choose our hardware carefully to weld pieces with inconspicuous seams that met their standards.”
 

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