The Gainesville Times is reporting that after three years of negotiations, the City has reached a compromise to allow digital billboards.  Fairway Outdoor has the majority of the 70 or so billboards and had submitted 15 applications to convert existing static boards to digital. All the applications were denied by the city. Ultimately, the two parties entered into negotiations and, though Fairway threatened a potential lawsuit, they were able to avoid litigation.

Fairway agreed to remove two billboards for each digital conversion.  The City had originally asked for three.  The agreement, provides for each advertisement to last at least 10 seconds along with limitations on brightness. The digital conversions cannot exceed 300 square feet and height limitations are set at no more than 35 feet.

The digital displays are to be made available to local, county and state law enforcement for emergency messages, such as Amber Alerts, weather-related warnings and other public safety information as needed.   The city is also donated advertising slots eight times annually for up to two weeks to display event and community messages.

The City Council has initially approved seven digital conversions with the removal of 14 static signs.

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