GUILDERLAND — The Guilderland Zoning Board of Appeals on July 16 approved fewer out-of-compliance signs for Costco’s Western Avenue store, leaving residents who spoke at the public hearing frustrated.

The proposed aggregate signage, which the four voting members approved, totaled about 880 square feet, approximately 560 fewer square feet than what was proposed in June. 

During public comment, Robyn Gray, who chairs the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth, told board members that the proposed signage remained “way too much,” and said, “There’s no mistake what this building is.”

She also took issue with what she saw as Pyramid/Costco’s lack of honesty. The property, owned by Pyramid, is being leased to Costco.

“They have not been truthful with us,” Gray said. Referencing Pyramid asset manager James Soos, she went on, “Mr. Soos said last time that Costco doesn’t advertise.”

At the board’s June meeting, Soos made the case that so many signs were necessary because Costco didn’t do traditional marketing or advertising and relied on the visual presence of the store and signs. 

“Well, you know what? Yes, they do.” Gray said. “I’ve got a [five]-page advertisement here that got emailed … OK? And it says exactly what Costco is and what it does.”

Gray also cited Pyramid’s presentation during an industrial development agency meeting in June 2023 when Milan Tyler, an attorney from Phillips Lytle speaking on behalf of Pyramid, told board members, “Without this financial assistance, Pyramid would not build the project, and therefore there’d be no place for Costco to go.”

The company had requested and was granted tax breaks worth $2.2 million, only to turn them down in March of this year. 

The claim the company wouldn’t build, Gray said, was “totally untruthful.”

Gray urged the board not to “bow down” to Pyramid and Costco, and suggested a reduction of “several hundred square feet” from the signage. 

Westmere resident Iris Broyde commended the board “for calling out the applicant’s prior signage requests for its pointless excesses,” and acknowledged Pyramid’s “concessions to scaling back” the proposal, but said she was “dumbstruck by what can only be called extraordinary callousness” in the continued magnitude of the request. 

Broyde pointed specifically to the sign that will be visible to the residents of Westmere Terrace where she lives. The sign, Broyde said, contains “six spotlights” that would illuminate from above “every letter” in Costco (each of the three large-scale signs contain downlighting on the Costco logo). 

The board, whose reception to Pyramid’s July presentation was generally warmer than its reaction to the company’s June proposal, sought to address part of Broyde’s concerns. 

Chairwoman Elizabeth Lott inquired about the lighting for the signs, citing specifically the tire center signage, asking, “How will it be lit?”

Project engineer Eric Redding told her that the lighting would be “down lit,” facing the building and signage itself to prevent any light from spilling off-site.

When questioned about specific hours of illumination, Redding indicated he did not know the exact hours but said limiting the hours “wouldn’t be an issue.”

History

On June 4, project developer Pyramid Management Group was before the board seeking a variance for five signs, 259.2 square feet each, while town code allows for just two signs with a total area of 50 square feet.

The signs were discussed as they appeared on design plans, B1 through B5: 

— B1 would be located about the store entrance on the Western Avenue side of the building, at the intersection of Western and Crossgates Mall Road;

— B2 would be located near the rear of the building facing the portion of Crossgates Mall Road that bends at the Rapp Road intersection and runs toward Western Avenue; 

— B3 would face Crossgates Mall, near Gabriel Terrace;

— B4 would face Gabriel Terrace, near Crossgates Mall Road;

— B5 would face Western Avenue, on the Gabriel Terrace side of the building; 

There would also be a large sign denoting the tire center that faces Crossgates Mall Road, on the same side of the building as B2. 

Additionally, there were four signs proposed, each a little more than 20 square feet, on the four sides of the fueling canopy, and a monument sign was proposed for the corner of Western Avenue and Crossgates Mall Road.

On July 16, Soos came back to the board with a proposal that no longer included signs B4, B5, as well as the four fuel-facility canopy signs, but included a second 35 square-foot monument sign, to be placed directly below the first, advertising the members-only gas station.

Lott, along with board members Nichole Ventresca-Cohen and Richard Villa and alternate James Zieno approved the project with the added condition that the downlighting be turned off by 8:30 p.m. Member Sharon Cupoli was absent and member Kevin McDonald recused himself.