The city Zoning Hearing Board recently granted a variance that will allow Groundhog Solar LLC to create an outdoor “showroom” in downtown Juniata, in a central business zone — whose rules don’t address such use. Company owner Richard Flarend intends to place ground-mounted solar displays on a vacant lot at the corner of North Fourth Avenue and North Eighth Street last occupied years ago by a Pal-Mino’s Pizza shop. The displays will allow prospective customers to see a type of installation that is uncommon, prior to possibly committing to purchase, Flarend wrote in a memo that accompanied his variance application. He got the idea from sections of concrete…