One County, A Lot Of Road.
Jacksonville is one city and one county at the same time. The 1968 consolidation folded Duval County into the city, which is why a shop on the Northside and a shop in Mandarin answer to the same government even though they sit forty minutes apart. Our prepared DIY LED sign kits ship anywhere in that footprint with the lighting already mounted inside the frame.
That much ground means most Jacksonville businesses are somebody's second stop, not a walk-up. A lit cabinet is how a driver on Beach Boulevard or Blanding decides you are open. We weld the aluminum to your size, you bolt it up yourself, and you keep up to 60% depending on your project.
The Kit, And The Price Difference
Shipping To Jacksonville And Every Town Around It
Kits ship to Orange Park, Fernandina Beach, Middleburg, Yulee, Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Ponte Vedra Beach — and everywhere in between. If FedEx delivers there, your sign kit can too.
Duval is enormous. You can drive an hour and still be in Jacksonville, which means your sign competes less with the shop next door than with the speed of the traffic going by. A cabinet that stays lit after dark earns its keep on Philips Highway, on Atlantic, on 103rd. Sign rules are set locally and they are not uniform across the county, so get your approved size in writing before we cut anything — the frame is welded to that number.
Every prepared kit includes: an aluminum frame cut to your size with welded corners, LEDs mounted inside, and a 12-volt power supply with wiring hardware as listed in your written quote. Sign faces and graphics are available separately through DIY Graphics.
How Your Kit Gets To Jacksonville
Jacksonville is a port and rail town, so people here already have opinions about freight. That is exactly what you get to skip. Roughly 95% of our kits ship FedEx Ground instead of freight, on the same route that already runs your side of the St. Johns every weekday. No terminal call, no dock hours, no waiting on a carrier that only comes out your direction twice a week.
What shows up. A standard cabinet breaks into four long boxes. Longer frames go to six, with splice joints placed so every package stays inside ground shipping limits. The welded sections arrive cut to your size with the LEDs already fixed inside them, and the 12-volt power supply and mounting hardware ride in the same boxes as quoted. Nothing ships separately, so there is no second delivery to chase down.
Delivery day. No dock, no liftgate, no delivery appointment to sit around for. That matters in a city this spread out, because plenty of Jacksonville owners run between two locations or a job site and cannot park themselves at the storefront all afternoon. One person can move the boxes inside whenever they land, and the install waits until you are ready for it.
Open the boxes the day they land. Look the sections over even if the cartons look perfect, and do it before install day rather than the morning of. Photograph anything crushed, torn or bent and keep the packaging exactly as it arrived — that is what a carrier claim is built on. Finding a problem the day a box shows up is a phone call; finding it with a crew standing on a ladder is a lost day.
Where to put it. North Florida gives you real summer humidity and the odd hard freeze in January, and aluminum handles both without rusting. The LEDs and the power supply are a different story — those boxes belong indoors until install day. If a delivery lands the same afternoon a squall comes in off the coast, bring it in rather than letting it sit on the walk.
Measure Twice. Order Once.
Your kit is cut to a size, welded, and pre-lit before it ships, so the size has to be right the first time. In Jacksonville that means three phone calls before you order, not after.
1. Ask what you're allowed
Consolidation makes this simpler than most places: for most addresses inside Duval County you are dealing with the City of Jacksonville rather than a separate county office. The beaches towns and Baldwin kept their own governments, though, so if you are in Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, Atlantic Beach or Baldwin, start with that city instead. Ask for the maximum sign area and height for your zoning district, whether your sign counts as wall-mounted or freestanding, and what setback applies. Sign area is usually tied to your building frontage, so the answer is specific to your address — not to the block or to the business next door.
2. Ask your landlord
If you're in a plaza or center, the landlord's sign criteria sit on top of the city code and are often stricter. Cabinet depth, face color, letter height and mounting method are all commonly spelled out. Get the criteria sheet in writing before you pick a size — it is cheaper than rebuilding a cabinet that the center won't approve.
3. Ask about engineering and wiring
Anything freestanding in Florida gets looked at for wind load. A pole or monument sign in Duval commonly needs engineered drawings and a footing detail signed and sealed by a Florida-licensed engineer, and because the cabinet is illuminated you should assume an electrical permit runs alongside the sign permit rather than being folded into it. Plan on a licensed electrician for the final hookup and inspection either way. We build the cabinet; the permit, the footing, the disconnect and the sign-off are local work done by local people.
Straight Answers For Jacksonville Businesses
Does the kit come with the sign face?
No. The kit is the welded aluminum cabinet, the LEDs mounted inside it, the power supply and the mounting hardware. Faces and printed graphics are a separate product on our DIY Graphics page. Plenty of Jacksonville owners already have artwork or a local printer they use — the cabinet gets built to fit whatever face you land on, which is why the size has to be settled first.
We have two locations across town. Can we order both at once?
Yes, and it is usually the smarter way to do it. Each cabinet is welded to its own approved size, so two Jacksonville addresses can mean two different signs on one quote. Large multi-sign orders are one of the few cases where freight makes more sense than ground — we will tell you which way yours goes when we quote it.
Do I need a permit for a lighted sign in Jacksonville?
Assume yes. Start with the City of Jacksonville, since consolidation means the city handles most of Duval County — unless your address sits in Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach or Baldwin, which run their own codes. An illuminated sign generally requires an electrical permit as well, and freestanding work commonly needs engineered drawings. Get the approved size in writing before you order.
Who should do the electrical hookup?
A licensed electrician, every time. These kits are not UL listed, so the final connection is inspected work and not a weekend job. You handle the sections, the squaring, the mounting and the faces. The electrician handles the feed, the disconnect and whatever your inspector wants to see. Budget for that trade the same way you budget for the permit.
Ready to get your written quote?
Every kit is prepared to order. Tell us about your project and we'll answer with a straight, written quote.
Contact DIY Sign Guy