Target Unveils Design Plan For Guilford Location

GUILFORD, CT – Target representatives shared their plans to improve the exterior site, façade, and signage for the proposed Target site at 830 Boston Post Rd. with the town’s design review board.

“Target has a certain brand and a clean, modern look we wish to combine with a Guilford context,” Joseph Mayhew said, design project architect.

Mayhew said they plan to remove the existing canopy and vestibule that Walmart had installed over the sidewalk and replace it with a new finish and façade, adding a new canopy to align with the new canopy on the rest of the shopping center.

Walmart closed its doors in May 2022.

Mayhew said the new Target will include a Starbucks, a CVS Pharmacy and a drive-up on the west side of the building.

Talking about the exterior of the building, Mayhew said the stonewall will be neutral light gray/off-white, and the canopy edge will be meatal in a dark silver color.

“The Canopy will be extended to where a sidewalk comes from the street to the store. A stone bench will be installed to create a focal point,” Mayhew said. “The target sign above the canopy will be illuminated, and there will be a CVS sign on the wall.”

Adding to the proposals, Mayhew said they would install three 8x8 planters with ornamental trees, and along the front, there will be red bollards for safety reasons.

Dean Apoostoleris, a Target representative, said Target will improve the sidewalk and the two ADA ramps on the front entrance to the site on the walks.

“There will be 12 new drive-up stalls in the west parking lot but no overall reduction in parking spaces,” he said. “These stalls will have signage numbering them so employees can find individual customers for pickups.”

“This is a vast improvement over what had been there for the past 20-plus years,” Shirley Girioni said.

Mary Repetti said in the past, the intent had been to minimize signage with guidelines and to harmonize other signs in the plaza and said she had met with the assistant town planner, who offered suggestions.

One of the suggestions was for the monument sign to remain as is, saying “Shoreline Plaza” because there were other stores in the plaza, not just Target and Big Y, and they use “SLP” as their address.

“The Shoreline Plaza’s name was established, and other stores used this as their address and felt it was unfair just to have Big Y and Target on the sign when other stores use the sign to bring people into their business,” Repetti said.

Aaron Hemquist, a Target representative, said originally, the new sign would not have contained the SLP, but it had been added in.

“Given the trees along the front of the property, the leadership direction had been to get Target on the sign because it was hard to see,” he said. “Target’s presence on the sign is critical to the overall deal.”

Another suggestion was for the Target sign above the canopy to have a gray background with the word “Target” in red. As well as Keeping the wayfinding sign at the crossroads coming in from pickup but eliminating the midway signage. Only another basic sign at the end was needed to direct customers up the drive. And lastly, tone down the red by reversing the colors so the background is white with red lettering.

“Red is what makes Target identifiable, and so respectfully, I would want to stay with a red background and white lettering rather than switching this color scheme,” Hemquist said.

Robert Charney said the overall design was nice and didn’t want to kill it because of the red background.

“But one of the contexts of Guilford is to have control over signage,” he said. “If the applicant flipped the colors just to satisfy the committee in the context of the rest of the plaza, it might help their argument tremendously.”

William Thompson said the committee was supportive of the design, which was thoughtful in many ways, but the committee would like to see it set in context to the overall plaza to help evaluate the scale and selection of some of the elements.