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Best Buy adjusts look of Grafton plans: Revised sign 'still distinctive,' company says(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 23--GRAFTON -- Best Buy has given up on its plans to have a 38-foot-high cosmetic extension of its building above the entrance to its planned store in Grafton. Company planners, who appeared before the Architectural Review Board Sept. 13, also showed drawings with a bluish-gray background, rather than a brighter blue, for the store's entrance. As a result, the board unanimously recommended the village accept the plans, which the village Plan Commission also must approve. "This is what the village wanted," said Michael Rambousek, Grafton's planning and development director. The Best Buy store is to be in the center of Grafton Commons, a new shopping complex at the northwest corner of I-43 and Highway 60. A Costco Wholesale Corp. store anchors the complex. At a Review Board meeting Aug. 9, Grafton planning staff members described modifications to the architecture of the planned Best Buy store as "too eccentric," and the board refused to approve the plans. But Best Buy officials said it was important for a nationally recognized store to maintain its identity, and they wanted the blue extension -- shaped like an "L" turned on its side over the store entrance -- to remain. After the Thursday meeting, Brendon Stuckey, Best Buy's architectural project manager for the Midwest, said the retailer had come "to some middle ground" with Grafton on the company's store plans. The revised plans, Rambousek said: "are distinctive enough so that people will know it's a Best Buy store. But the (new) design ties into the theme of Grafton Commons. That's what we needed . . . a balance." To see more of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.jsonline.com. Copyright (c) 2007, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |