Biz beat: Businesses off I-35 seek better signs directing motorists

Several Lakeville businesses have run into bureaucratic tangles when they tried to get signs erected to direct motorists from Interstate 35 to hotels, restaurants and gas stations.

The problem is that Lakeville and Dakota County will only allow speed limit and similar highway signs on city or county roads. As a rule, they refuse to allow signs directing drivers to destinations off the interstate.

That was the situation for Pizza Ranch, which opened last May a few blocks west of I-35 at 16995 Kenyon Trail. The Comfort Inn also has long sought to get its hotel logo posted on a blue informational sign on southbound I-35, said owner Sunny Bhakta.

Dave DeSutter is general manager of Minnesota Logos, a private business that handles the blue signs for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

He explained that the state will post the blue directional signs for businesses on state roadways and exit ramps. But if a business is not within sight of the ramp, the state requires one or more additional blue signs to be erected off the highway to ensure that travelers can find the business, he said. And sometimes the only place to erect those followup signs is on a city or county road, where they are not allowed.

"Bigger cities and counties don't often approve signs on their property because if they say yes to one business, they have to say yes to everybody," DeSutter said.

That's were Pizza Ranch ran into trouble.

Meanwhile, DeSutter said he has found a way to get signs posted for Pizza Ranch and Comfort Inn. He found that County Road 5, which runs west from the County 50 exit ramp, has a section of state right of way by a holding pond. The state is allowing Pizza Ranch to erect a sign there, even though the sign is on a county road, DeSutter said.

The Pizza Ranch sign should go up in a few weeks and will include directions for a nearby Cracker Barrel. That restaurant agreed to remove an unapproved sign on private property, he said.

The Comfort Inn had sought a sign on southbound I-35 since the state removed its hotel sign because it no longer met state rules after the County Road 50 exit was widened from two to three lanes about six years ago, Bhakta said. But last August, a new MnDOT official found room for the hotel freeway sign just before the County Road 50 exit ramp, she said.

Bhakta said her hotel, at 17605 Kenrick Av., still loses some customers because she can't get an adequate follow-up sign posted on County Road 50 that points motorists to her hotel on the east side of I-35. She said the nearby Quello Clinic allows her to post a small sign, but many people miss it. She pays more than $2,000 a year for the blue Logos signs. "It is hard to see my sign. They go straight by or go left," she said. "It would be great to have people actually find your hotel."

Brian Sorenson, assistant county engineer, said the county is "exploring whether that makes sense to add to our sign guidance, and if so, how to define the most direct route and the size of the signs." He said such signs would have to be applicable countywide and be balanced against "very busy areas where motorists already are overloaded with information."