Virtua plans primary care, urgent care center on WHP
Page 4 • Wednesday, August 23, 2017 • The Hammonton Gazette
PLANNING, from Page 1
2 at 71-75 South White Horse
Pike.
Virtua Medical Group, Pa., was
represented during the meeting by
attorney William Highland. Virtua
Health administrative director of
opera tions Diana Amey and NW
Sign Industries vice president
Dennis O’Hara also gave testi-
mony on behalf of the application.
The two façade signs Virtua is
seeking to install on the structure
(located within the vacant space
on the left side of Planet Fitness)
will depict the Virtua Express Ur-
gent Care facility, and the other
will be for advertising the primary
care group, according to Highland.
The signs require a hardship
variance because they are above
the required height permitted (24
inches) in the GW-2 zone, but
Highland said this is only because
of the torch that protrudes from
the top of the Virtua logo.
Amey said having the torch be
a part of the logo is key because
branding is very important for Vir-
tua and helps patients recognize
the facilities from afar. As for the
need to have two façade signs on
the building, she said it is essential
because the difference between
needing urgent care and primary
care can be very different.
“Our signage is our branding.
It’s the same sign that you’ll see
on all of our facilities. But more
importantly, the need for the two
signs: we are one Virtua, we are
one organization, but there’s a dis-
tinct difference between needing
urgent care and needing the pri-
mary care. When people need ur-
gent care, they want it to be easily
seen, they want it to be easily
found. Your child is sick on a Sun-
day morning, you want to remem-
ber that you went to the Walmart
one day and saw that Virtua has an
urgent care right there because we
had the appropriate signage on the
building,” Amey said.
The primary care portion of the
facility will relocate from its cur-
rent location on 12th Street in
order to expand. Amey said hav-
ing facilities that contain both ur-
gent and primary care is becoming
a common practice for Virtua and
has shown positive results in re-
gards to patient care.
“What we’ve done in Virtua is
we’re starting to put these prac-
tices together because they really
benefit from being connected. If
you go to the urgent care on a Sun-
day, Monday morning, when your
primary doctor comes in, if they’re
a Virtua primary doctor, they will
get notification that you were
there, what happened and what
medication. So, it really helps with
the continuum of care,” Amey
said.
Board planner Kevin Dixon said
in the case of this Virtua facility,
which is setback about 700 feet
from the road, it is essential to
have signs large enough for people
to see from afar.
“I believe larger is safer because
it’s more visibility and visibility
equals safety. So, you have to bal-
ance that with the impact of that
deviation from the ordinance and
that deviation is very minor when
compared to the same visual im-
pact of a sign that would meet the
setback on a building that is 40
feet off the road. So, I think the
benefits of the disability outweigh
the detriments of the deviation and
any impact it would create ... I
think the board is pretty clear to
grant the variance if it so desires,”
Dixon said.
The application was broken up
into two motions by board solici-
tor James Schroeder, one for a
waiver of site plan, and one for the
hardship variances to permit two
façade signs on a single structure
See BOARD, Page 10