Wellstar, its Columbia County hospital well underway, is looking to redesign its signage.
The Wellstar Columbia County Medical Center has been under construction at 5000 Gateway Blvd. in Grovetown since April of 2024, and is well on track for its projected completion by the middle of next year. Last month, Wellstar petitioned the county for a revision of its Special District Zoning (S-1) signage plan.
As the S-1 zoning is for a single, specific use, any development with the zoning is required to adhere to whatever peculiar specifications it had approved for that use. The hospital site was rezoned to S-1 in 2019, followed by modifications approved in 2023.
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The hospital’s current site signage design plan has 24 signs, with two monument signs acting as campus entrance identifiers, and the remaining being wayfinding signs. The design also includes 17 wall mounted signs.
The request seeks permission to vary from the hospital site’s approved S-1signage specifications, including six, rather than the permitted four, parapet signs; six foot, rather than four-foot, logo height; and for the area of some of the signs to be larger than the allowed 160 square feet.
The variance request also asks that changes to ground-based signage on the hospital campus be allowed without further amendments to the signage master plan, saying in its narrative document, “As the campus grows, and medical services and circulation patterns evolve, it is possible that changes to proposed sign locations and sign quantities within the internal portions of the campus may be required to respond to patient wayfinding needs.”
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The Columbia County Planning Commission is scheduled to consider Wellstar’s variance request in its meeting on June 15.
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
