Home Depot, Round 2: Developer asks for 3 tall signs

The developer of Rancho Sahuarita is resuming talks with Home Depot and once again seeking town approval for towering freeway signs. Opposition over sign heights and outdoor lighting on the same project led to the withdrawal of the request in April after developer Bob Sharpe said the Home Depot deal fell apart.

A pharmacy is also being sought, possibly a Walgreens or CVS, as well as another big box store, possibly a Target, the developer’s staff said at a homeowners’ association meeting this month.

Sharpe later said he could not discuss “speculative negotiations.”

Rancho Sahuarita officials Tom Murphy and Jeremy Sharpe, the son of the developer, said Rancho Sahuarita is talking to Home Depot again about locating a store in the community. Those talks may reflect the fact that the town is moving along on rebuilding La Canada Drive, which Home Depot officials said is a requirement for opening a store.

Asked about Home Depot, Bob Sharpe said he is working with the town so that “public infrastructure and signage will be available” throughout the Town Center, which is southeast of Sahuarita Road and Interstate 19 and the Power Center west of the freeway.

Rancho Sahuarita has submitted a Specific Plan Amendment (SPA) request to the Town Planning and Zoning Department for signs in the Town Center, including three freeway signs 75 feet above freeway grade. The signs would be 720 square feet each.

One sign would be a mile north of Sahuarita Road west of Interstate 19, and two would go on either side of the freeway about a half mile south of Sahuarita Road. A previous request for freeways signs as high as 85 feet was withdrawn last spring after running into objections about the height and the developer’s outdoor lighting intentions.

The developer largely wants to follow the 1993 outdoor lighting code, which critics say is outdated and allows too much light into the skies for observatory work. The developer has given in on some points, including a limit of light per fixture limit.

The SPA request was scheduled to go before the town Planning and Zoning Commission on Dec. 7 but has been postponed.

What remains on that agenda is a town item to update the sign code in most of the town outside Rancho Sahuarita. The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Town Council chambers in Town Hall. The agenda will be posted at www.ci.sahuarita.az.us under Agenda and Documents.

The Town Council months ago asked the commission to research new sign standards after discovering that current rules do not allow signs higher than 15 feet along the freeway and limit what kinds of businesses can post signs there. A new sign ordinance could allow for freeway signs serving Sahuarita Plaza, Madera Marketplace and Wal-Mart, for example.

The request on signs would complete the developer’s SPA requests for the Town Center. Rancho Sahuarita won Town Council approval earlier this year of five of six SPA requests, including requests on density and parking regulations, but ran into opposition on a request for an updated sign code and withdrew its request. The original request for 85-foot-high signs that triggered opposition by homeowners and businesses as well as objections by observatories to the developer’s current lighting practices. The freeway sign request later was scaled down to 55 feet above freeway grade, but the outdoor lighting issue was not resolved.

Home Depot became a flashpoint starting last fall and spring as Rancho Sahuarita officials asserted that Home Depot would not locate in Sahuarita without such signs. However, a store representative appeared before the Town Council and twice declined to set a minimum sign height and another said that infrastructure was the company’s only requirement.

In November, 2008 the developer’s representatives told the Town Council that Home Depot would not locate in the town unless the town gave the developer a $38 million tax incentive and that if that did not happen, the town center could remain empty desert for years to come.

New businesses

At the homeowners meeting, Murphy and Jeremy Sharpe gave timelines for several businesses under way in the Rancho Sahuarita Marketplace: Agility, the physical therapist, could open any day, they said. Asian Sky restaurant is expected to open in December, and El Charro Cafe in April. Bob Sharpe said he was not aware that El Charro has committed to a timeline.

Bob Sharpe said, “The Town Center has always been envisioned as a ‘destination gathering place.’ We are exploring the possibility of adding lifestyle gathering places to the Power Center and the Marketplace areas of the Town Center.

Jeremy Sharpe has taken on the role of director of special media. His job is to communicate Rancho Sahuarita happenings within the development and with the community as a whole, using social networking, to allow residents of the master planned community to speak to each other.

Mission property

In another Rancho Sahuarita project, Town Planning and Zoning Director Sarah More said the developer has requested to go before the Town Council in January with a request for a major plan amendment needed to annex its 462-acre Sahuarita Mission property at Mission Road and Helmet Peak Road into the town.

More said the property is owned by the Bureau of Land Management and is between Sahuarita Mission and the proposed Mission Peaks development. Mission Peaks is a planned 15,000-unit development that is in the process of annexing into town, and the BLM land also would have to be annexed in to allow Sahuarita Mission to annex to the town. More said she has not heard recently from the owners of Mission Peaks, American Nevada Co.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com| 547-9738