Fit for Royalty

Bill Lockett is president of Cima Network (Ft. Washington, PA), a sign-design and project-management firm.

 

Regal Cinemas (Knoxville, TN) and its architect, Rodney Sartain Architects (Birmingham, AL), sought to make a splash at their new theatre at the Ithaca Mall in upstate New York. Their goal was to amplify the Regal with 3-D signage and lighting indicative of an entertainment-themed establishment.

The theatre’s exterior features a 30-ft.-tall, single-face blade sign; a 14-ft.-tall, crown logo; and 200 lineal ft. of LED border tubing that outlines of the Regal’s crown quadrants. The interior features a radius marquee and an architectural swoop, perpendicular to the radius, which reads “Tickets.”

 

Hatching the idea

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Regal’s Kate Kornhaus and Kelly Arnold, the company’s director and assistant director of signage, respectively, selected Cima Network Inc. to manage the project. We started with a preliminary meeting to review the architect’s intent, customer expectations, and the local code and landlord requirements. Cima’s core competencies entail design and project management. We worked directly for Regal on this nine-week project.

A successful project requires a cohesive plan and the right team. We work with numerous qualified vendors. To reduce our clients’ freight costs, we seek local or regional vendors with suitable experience, equipment and operating capacity for our needs. For this job, we hired Custom Finishers Inc. (CF), Levittown, PA, a turnkey shop that fabricates signage, lighting and architectural metal. I worked for CF for three years, where I served as business-development VP, so I’m very familiar with their ability to handle projects of this magnitude.

We brainstormed the best materials to accomplish the task. To illuminate the crown, we used 3M’s Panaflex™ flexible-face material with internal, fluorescent lighting. For energy-efficient, background lighting, we implemented Tivoli LLC’s Tivoflex LED system. To make the channel letters pop, we used EGL 15mm, exposed neon. Keith Denny, Cima Network’s VP, generated renderings for the client to get an accurate perspective of the envisioned final design. He created the renderings using CorelDRAW 10.

Simultaneously, we engaged in dialog with the authority having jurisdiction, the City of Ithaca, and landlord, the Pyramid Mall Group, to prepare for the project approval. After having reviewed the sizes of the signs and customers’ expectations, we chose the materials for the project, and CF generated shop drawings. Once the plan was in place, and the drawings were complete, CF was ready to begin its manufacturing process.

 

Build, baby, build

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CF built the exterior blade sign from 0.090-in.-thick aluminum angle that shows several different depths and channels. Between the sign’s reveals, CF installed 15mm, exposed, ruby-red EGL tubing for neon channel letters. The 30-in.-tall letters feature 6-in.-deep returns. To enclose the letterfaces, we used clear, 3⁄16-in.-thick, Cyro acrylic.
The Tivoflex LED accent lighting helped create the marquee feel and separate the letters. CF mounted all Transco transformers and LED power supplies within the sign structure. Installers anchored the blade sign into the building’s blocking using 6-in.-long, ½-in.-diameter Hilti lag bolts.

The shop constructed the 14-ft.-tall Regal crown logo from an angle-iron frame. The logo was illuminated with T12 high-output fluorescent bulbs that span from 48 to 96 in. long. Because of the crown’s unique shape, installers positioned them within the cabinet for even, consistent illumination. To create the sign’s illuminated perimeter, CF constructed 3.5-in.-sq., painted-aluminum angle and fastened it to the sign frame.
We mounted Tivoflex on the angle, constructed the face with Panaflex and decorated it with 3M vinyl. We layered the vinyl to create a shadowing effect.

To complete the Regal logo, our team developed an array of different colors on the rear wall to create four color quadrants that represent Regal’s four brands: Regal Cinemas, Edwards Cinemas, United Artist Theatres and Regal Cinemedia. We met the challenge of setting the lighting and crown logo’s orientation to integrate like a standard logo, although the color segments of the crown reside on walls 14 ft. apart.

Finally, for the front elevation below the crown, CF produced 2-ft.-tall, 15mm, exposed, ruby-red, neon-lit channel letters, which read “Cinemas.” Two remotely installed, 9,000V Transco transformers power the sign. The channel letters required welding; their custom-painted returns match the design’s color palette.

 

Come inside

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For the interior-sign program, CF built a 30-ft.-long, radius structure from 0.125-in.-thick, 1.5-in.-sq., aluminum angle, which stands 30 in. above the box office. The radius features two-step reveals that house 15mm neon accents, top and bottom. Mounted to the face of the structure are 24-in.-tall, face-lit channel letters with 3⁄16-in.-thick, red acrylic faces and internal LED illumination.

Swooping from the face of the box-office wall, a fabricated metal articulation that reads “Tickets” runs perpendicularly to the mall hallway for design emphasis and functional wayfinding. On the wall adjacent to the structure, 15-in.-tall, reverse-lit, LED channel letters read “Box Office.”

Flanking the box office, two enveloping signs identify an ATM and an automated ticket window. Each piece features a layered, aluminum header box with LED lighting and a vinyl-clad, Plexiglas® acrylic face on routed, metal pans. Custom-fabricated, decorative, metal-trim rails run vertically down the machines’ sides.

When installing a project at a mall location several factors must be considered:
•?Site logistics for equipment;
•?Ongoing, thorough communication with other trades;
•?Working-hour restrictions;
•?Structural modifications required to support the signs; and
•   ?Allocating electricity required to light the signs.

 

Because such project requirements occur in phases, we prepared a detailed Gantt project-management bar chart that highlighted critical tasks for implementation. The process required weekly meetings with the general contractor, Time Cap Development Corp., the landlord, electricians and carpenters to ensure solid communication.
CF also supervised the project’s local installers, Sign & Lighting Services (Ontario, NY), onsite, to ensure quality process while managing costs. Thanks to ample preparation, the project went off without a hitch and greatly pleased our customer and its landlord.

 

Equipment and Materials

Hardware: Aluminum angle (0.090- and 0.125-in.-thick material) and angle iron, from industrial-equipment and building-contractor supply houses

Media: Panaflex™ flexible-face material, from 3M Corp. (St. Paul, MN), (888) 364-3577 or www.3mgraphics.com; Controltac repositionable film, from 3M Corp.

Plastic: Acrylite® clear, 3/16-in.-thick acrylic, from Evonik Industries (Parsippany, NJ), (800) 631-5384 or www.evonik.com

Neon/Lighting: High-output, T12 fluorescent ballasts, from such vendors as Sylvania (Danvers, MA), (978) 777-1900 or www.sylvania.com; ruby-red, 15mm neon tubing, from EGL (Berkeley Heights, NJ), (908) 508-1111 or www.egl-neon.com; Tivoflex LED tube lighting, from Tivoli LLC (Santa Ana, CA), (714) 957-6101 or www.tivolilighting.com; Poly-Trans 9,000V transformers, from Transco (West Columbia, SC), (800) 869-6366 or www.transco-usa.com

Software: CorelDRAW design software, from Corel Corp. (Ottawa, ON, Canada), (877) 582-6835 or www.corel.com
 

 

About the Author

Bill Lockett serves as president of Philadelphia-based Cima Network, a sign-design and project-management firm. Previously, he served as business-development VP for Custom Finishers Inc. for three years. Lockett’s sign-business career has included serving as a project manager and senior account executive. In addition to Regal Cinemas, Cima clients include Pep Boys, American Girl and Raymour & Flanigan. The company also serves as a representative for Moss retail environments, which include interior signs and environmental-graphic displays.