New Signs Going Up at Washington Town Center

Businesses in the Washington Town Center have started installing their new signs after the township's council adopted an ordinance easing restrictions on signs in the strip mall.

Vincent's Trattoria and Verizon have both recently installed new signs, Verizon using the company's logo and Vincent's adding a red "trattoria" under their existing sign.

Jonathan Ronda, the manager at the Verizon store, told Patch he expects the new sign will help draw more customers who might have otherwise ignored the strip mall's uniform blue signs, which many have said are hard to read from the road.

"Variety is going to cause more people to take a second look," Ronda said.

According to Ada Gazzillo of Vincent's, having the additional sign already made a noticeable boost for the restaurant when they originally added it for a few weeks in the spring. They later had to remove it because it violated the sign ordinance governing the mall. Customers to Gazzillo they had not realized Vincent's was a restaurant.

"They thought we were the movie theater before," Gazzillo said. "They thought we were 'Vincent's Cinema.'"

The Washington Township Council adopted an ordinance in September easing restrictions on signs. Business owners then had to wait 20 days and get approval from the mall's owner and permits from the township to install their new signs.

Several other businesses are also planning to put up new signs, and some are also hoping to convince the town and landlord to put up a new marquee sign listing all the businesses in the mall.

Currently, only the A&P, post office and movie theater are listed on the marquee. John Azarian, the CEO of the Azarian Group, which is managing the mall, previously told Patch that the current marquee cannot be altered because of lease agreements with the three tenants featured on the sign.

Gazzillo said a new marquee would help draw even more customers because the store fronts are set back far from the road.

"We need people to know we're there," Gazzillo said.

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