Rising high above the roof of a former Angel Food Donuts in Long Beach, this giant donut sign has been a highly visible feature to motorists traveling along E. 7th Street for over five decades. It is a classic example of programmatic signage which, like programmatic architecture, is fashioned in the shape of a business’s product or identity.

Programmatic signage such as giant donuts was highly visible and instantly recognizable to travelling motorists along southern California’s major boulevards. They also reflect the evolution of roadside commercial signage during the postwar era, when signs reached incredible dimensions in response to the auto’s prominence in society.

Large-scale signage such as giant donuts is an increasingly rare resource type, often classified by cities as “existing non-conforming,” as many communities have enacted signage ordinances that restrict the size and dimensions of newly constructed signage.

Such restrictive ordinances governing signage have left most communities with a finite amount of potentially historic signage from the postwar era. Often these signs are removed as businesses change from one use to another.

The giant donut signage atop the former Angel Food Donuts was threatened with removal to make way for a new location of Dunkin’ Donuts. The franchisee, Frontier Restaurant Group, proposed to demolish the two onsite structures, a liquor store, and the former Angel Food Donuts, and construct a new one-story, 1,889 square foot fast food restaurant in its place.  As part of the proposed development, the franchisee planned to donate the giant donut signage to the city of Long Beach.

As reported in the Orange County Register, franchisee Frontier Restaurant Group rejected a proposal to include the big donut in its design of the new Dunkin’ Donuts for the site, stating they “didn’t want the doughnut structure because the snack no longer measures up to its core menu.”

However, many Long Beach residents didn’t want to see the character of their neighborhood changed with the loss of the distinctive donut signage, which has been a part of the streetscape for over fifty years.

Both the Los Angeles Conservancy and local advocacy group Long Beach Heritage believed that an obvious “win-win” solution could be readily achieved, particularly because the site’s new operator is a donut chain.

The owner of the property had previously offered to donate the sign to the City of Long Beach, whereby it would be placed in storage. This approach would not have been an appropriate method of preservation or material conservation, as the donut would have been unlikely to ever return as a sign for the public to enjoy, nor is the City equipped to store, care for, or maintain this type of sign long-term.

The Conservancy believes the Angel Food Donuts Sign is historic and should be treated as such as part of the California Environmental Equality Act (CEQA). In 2009, the City of Long Beach specifically identified the Angel Food Donuts Sign as part of its Historic Context Statement, stating, “[N]ow valued not only for their implicit humor but also as cultural artifacts, programmatic architecture when encountered should be considered significant, even though it might be altered.”

The project required discretionary approval for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) by the City of Long Beach. We urged the City to consider a preservation alternative that retains and reuses the sign before granting the CUP.