Company:Railroad Outdoor

Markets: Georgia

Headquarters: 1750 Peachtree Street, NW, Atlanta, GA  30325

Phone: 678-571-8899

Railroad Outdoor, LLC develops, operates and manages 200 billboards faces throughout Georgia.  Formed in 2010 by two Atlanta commercial real estate brokers, Mike Fitzgerald and Kelly Shaw, the company has a strong track record of growth with long term leases in great locations.  

How did you enter the out of home business?

We met when Kelly was trying to lease land for a new billboard on land that Mike had listed for sale.  That deal didn’t work out but we stayed in touch and several years later decided to form a partnership to build new billboards in Metro Atlanta and north Georgia.  We formed the company during the Great Recession and money was very tight.  We worked side by side building our first billboards by hand, but these days the signs are built out of steel with cranes and heavy equipment.

Where did the Railroad Outdoor name come from?

In the beginning, we built many of our signs along railroad tracks and that is where the “Railroad” part of our name comes from. A common name for what we do is outdoor advertising and that is where the “Outdoor” comes from.

Tell us about your plant.

We focus on communities that are experiencing tremendous growth but have not seen the supply of billboards keep pace.  This creates a strong demand for our service and results in high occupancy rates and healthy rental rates.

What are the differences between having a 6 by 12 plant and having a 14 by 48 plant?

We have a pretty even split between small and large signs now.  Most of our recent development has been in Posters and Bulletins.  It’s always a challenge to protect the visibility of shorter signs, but we’ve found the rental rate has more to do with the readability of the face than its size.  By placing smaller signs close to driver, the advertiser can showcase their message much better than larger signs that are 100 feet tall and set back 200 feet from the road.  

Do you have any digital signs?  What’s your attitude to digital?

We are giving digital a very hard look.  As digital  display prices come down, we think it will make sense to convert some of our faces to digital.