Here is a step almost every leased storefront has to clear that almost nobody warns you about: before any city looks at your sign permit, your landlord has to approve the sign. Shopping centers and office parks maintain written sign criteria, and property managers reject nonconforming submittals as routinely as cities do. We process landlord submittals every week at GOM, and the difference between a first-pass approval and a three-week revision cycle is almost always in the paperwork.
What Sign Criteria Actually Say
A typical sign criteria document dictates the allowed sign type (usually individual channel letters — most centers prohibit cabinet/box signs on storefronts), maximum letter height and overall sign area based on your storefront width, allowed illumination, mounting requirements, and sometimes even the raceway color so it blends with the fascia. National tenants get exceptions negotiated in their leases; local businesses generally do not. If your dream sign violates the criteria, it is better to know before design, not after fabrication.
What a Complete Submittal Looks Like
Property managers approve drawings, not descriptions. A complete package includes a scaled elevation showing the sign on your actual storefront, dimensions and total square footage, materials and colors, illumination details, and a cross-section showing how it mounts. When that package matches the criteria on the first pass, approvals often come back in days. When a tenant sends a logo screenshot and a paragraph, the cycle starts over each time the manager asks a question.
How We Handle It
Ask for your sign criteria the day you sign your lease — it is usually an exhibit in the lease itself — and hand it to your sign company before design starts. We design against the criteria from the start, prepare the submittal package, and go back and forth with the property manager directly so you are not the middleman. Then the same drawings roll straight into the city permit application. One package, two approvals, no wasted cycles.
