By: Jaime Izurieta-Varea
Founder,
Storefront Mastery 
Board Member, 
Downtown New Jersey 

How a city partnered with its economic development office and a design consultant to rewrite its commercial regulations — and actually got it done.

My Substack is full of essays that look into how economics shape cities, in the form of incentives, policy, disaster response, and design. My work is varied, ranging from design engagements to policy advisory. Today’s post is not an essay but the presentation of a case that became an important part of Storefront Mastery’s portfolio. We were engaged to make recommendations for updating existing signage and storefront regulations in Perth Amboy NJ, and we created an entirely new system for allowances, permitting, and enforcing that we are very proud of.

Please check out my previous essays, and stay tuned, as I keep exploring urban economics, placemaking, design, and architecture, in this Substack and also at the Southern Urbanism Magazine. Without much more, here is the case study:

CASE STUDY | Perth Amboy, NJ 

Background

Perth Amboy has a spectacular urban combination: a beautiful historic commercial fabric and a culturally rich business community. Like most American cities, it also had a set of commercial design regulations that had been compounding since the 1970s without anyone asking whether they were producing good outcomes. Violations were everywhere. Enforcement was inconsistent. And the signage and façade conditions that resulted were a self-inflicted wound.

The city’s Office of Economic and Community Development (OECD) had done thorough diagnostic work: documenting violations, flagging code sections for reform, and drafting ordinances on specific issues like upper-story windows in mixed-use buildings. What they needed was a partner who guided them through the issues they had found, into a transformative way of thinking about the aesthetics of the public realm, and how to achieve good quality commercial streetscapes within administrative and budgetary constraints.

Storefront Mastery came in to translate that diagnosis into design standards, and then show what those standards actually looked like on real buildings, as the first step to amend the regulatory framework and introduce innovative paths to compliance and enforcement.

The Questions the City Was Actually Asking

Before any work started, the city’s leadership named the real tensions. The boilerplate “how do we improve the streetscape?” could have been answered in many ways. We chose one that provided alternatives and streamlined processes. Our questions went deeper:

Can regulatory changes actually fix a streetscape? Can tougher enforcement actually curb violations, or does it just generate fines and resentment? Where’s the line that keeps order but still allows for the creativity and cultural expression that makes a commercial corridor worth visiting in the first place? And what additional structure does the city need to make any of this stick?

These were the questions Storefront Mastery was brought in to answer, using design and looking at the public space holistically.

The starting conditions on commercial corridors:

Documented violations did not have clear standards to enforce against. Signage chaos had been accumulating over time: oversized awnings covering historic facades, windows plastered with competing messages, no hierarchy and no legibility, businesses with five different, non-compliant signs. There was no mechanism for rewarding quality design, and no distributable reference document for business owners or sign makers, meaning every permit application started from scratch and every reviewer applied different judgment.

A Division of Labor That Actually Worked

The city’s OECD carried out a year-long research of individual cases, catalogued them as signage, sidewalk occupation, or storefront design issues, and found the specific sections of the code were those violations were specified. Storefront Mastery created a draft amendment, design standards, a graphic guidelines document, and proof of concept.

OECD’s role: Document existing violations, identify code sections for reform, recommend courses of action, and draft ordinances on targeted issues — like upper-story window requirements in mixed-use buildings — that needed legal precision before design could enter.

Storefront Mastery’s role: Create and apply design standards across four categories (sidewalk occupation, signage, façades, and compliance infrastructure), produce a distributable guidelines document, and generate before/after redesigns of three actual Perth Amboy storefronts as proof of concept.

These ideas were brought together in a presentation to the Mayor and Council, that framed the project explicitly as a “reframing”. The concept was a renewed relationship between the city and the businesses it regulates where they would both see each other as a partner in building a quality streetscape.

What the Standards Actually Cover

There are four categories. Each one addresses a condition the previous regulations either ignored or handled in ways that produced consistently substandard outcomes, and were a burden on Code Enforcement officials.

Sidewalk Occupation
Culturally appropriate use of storefront frontages, with standards for usage, maintenance, operations, safety, accessibility, and egress. Perth Amboy’s corridors have a tradition of active sidewalk commerce. The new standards protect that tradition while establishing the conditions under which it can thrive without conflict.

Signage
We updated sections on materials, hardware, and illumination standards that were obsolete and have changed dramatically in the time since the code was last updated. We disrupted the conventional way of sizing signs by making the allowable sign area dynamic, tied to the size of the building, to the space occupied by the storefront, and the frontage length, and made the typographic standards clear from the beginning.

We introduced four new sign categories: Banner, Marquee/Canopy, Cabinet/Box, and Special Signs. These add to the current conventional ones (wall, projecting, awning, etc.). A new “Architectural Grade” category allows creative signs with fewer limitations but higher material and design standards. The core idea: creativity is allowed. It just has to be good.

Façades
Murals integrated with signage. Projection mapping. Overlays, architectural screens, and vertical gardens each have their standards. 3D objects and sidewalk spillovers became part of the sidewalk occupation rules, all with high-quality materials and professional design requirements.

The Compliance Roadmap presents strategies to build a culture of voluntary, organic compliance. Few rules, quick and content-neutral reviews, checklist-based approvals. Pre-approved sign design templates for small businesses. A proposed Business Concierge & Attraction Office to support property owners through the process rather than just citing them.

Read More