Today literally is a red-letter day for a new business in downtown DeLand.
The Jimmy John’s chain of sandwich restaurants is planning to open a franchised shop on the corner of Woodland Boulevard and Wisconsin Avenue by the end of the month, but not before it has an exterior sign. And that signage is a point of contention with the city’s Historic Preservation Board.
It’s not that’s it too big or too garish. Rather, the two J’s in the otherwise black-and-white sign are the wrong kind of red. Seriously.
As The News-Journal’s Austin Fuller reported, the city has a palette of colors that must be used in the historic downtown, and Jimmy John’s shade of red is not included among them. Historic preservation coordinator Elysha Petschauer told Fuller that the intent of regulating colors “is to maintain the character of the downtown.”