Three years ago, nearly to the day, a sheet of plastic as tall as a giraffe and stronger than plexiglass fell 500 feet before crash landing onto one of the busiest streets in Philadelphia.
At the top of the 16th-highest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love, a portion of the "W" in a logo for WSFS Financial broke off — leaving the building's rooftop-level sign with a shape resembling an italic "N," followed by "SFS."
Now, the Wilmington, Delaware-based bank is suing the firms behind the design, construction and installation of the signs at 1818 Market St., alleging that their work in Philadelphia and at a property in Wilmington was defective.
WSFS alleges that the two defendants, Eastern Sign Tech and Murdoch Engineering, breached their contracts with the bank, according to a complaint filed last Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
"Despite paying [Eastern Sign Tech] considerable sums of money for signs which should have been designed and installed to withstand the customary weather conditions for this geographic area, remain in place, and not plummet to the ground creating the likelihood of catastrophic injuries," the suit alleges, "WSFS did not receive the benefit of its bargain."
The $21 billion-asset bank is aiming to recoup the money it has spent to inspect and replace the signs, plus recover for other damages and attorneys' fees. The suit doesn't specify a price tag, only that the bank is seeking more than $75,000.
WSFS declined to comment, as did Murdoch Engineering. Eastern Sign Tech did not respond to a request for comment.
WSFS acquired Beneficial Bancorp, which had previously hung branding at 1818 Market St., and lit up the rooftop level with its own logo in 2019. The bank hired Eastern Sign Tech for sign work at both the Philadelphia skyscraper and its headquarters in a Wilmington high rise. Burlington, New Jersey-based Eastern Sign Tech contracted with Murdoch Engineering as its engineer of record for the projects, per WSFS' complaint.
A few days after the Philadelphia sign first broke in 2021, Jere Murdoch, principal engineer at his eponymous firm, said in an email to Eastern Sign Tech that "after a complete review," he thought that the wind had weakened the fasteners' grip over time, per evidence submitted with WSFS' complaint. Murdoch said at the time that he recommended making changes to the fasteners and that the sign should be professionally inspected annually.
After what WSFS refers to as the "almost-tragedy" of the logo piece falling to the ground in 2021 — about two years after the signage was installed — the bank said it began inspecting the signs, and later hired external engineering and design firms to assess their stability.
The bank alleges that those firms found some part of the project "was not installed in accordance with the shop drawings" prepared by Eastern Sign Tech; that certain aspects were "completely deficient;" and that the rooftop-level logo in Philadelphia wasn't code-compliant and "would create dangerous conditions."
In December 2022, following a meeting with WSFS, Jere Murdoch wrote in an email to WSFS that the building code "is not overly detailed regarding what is required for sign structures," adding that his recommendations for repairs were not due to an initial design flaw.
He reiterated that rooftop-level signage needs yearly inspection, and added that he was "confident there is not currently a safety concern."
"My main goal with this correspondence is to ensure you that the signs are safe and were not designed insufficiently," Murdoch said. "I have been engineering sign structures exclusively for over 15 years and would not put my license in jeopardy by certifying a sign structure that was unsafe, for any reason. Public safety is our #1 priority."
WSFS initially repaired the rooftop-level signs in Philadelphia and Wilmington before eventually replacing the work done by Eastern Sign Tech and Murdoch. The bank also used its new design firm to make repairs to street-level signage on the Market Street building in Philadelphia.
As of Monday, Eastern Sign Tech's website highlighted its work on sign installations for several other banks, including TD Bank Group, the recently failed Republic First Bank and BB&T, which merged with SunTrust Bank to form Truist Financial in 2019.
The company's website also still featured the work it did on WSFS' signs in Philadelphia.
"Eastern Sign Tech's biggest accomplishment was being able to successfully bring WSFS' vision to life by installing their 15-foot letters on the south and west sides of the 40-story skyscraper building, allowing you [to] see them from the stadiums to the boat houses," the website said.
