Building Salt Lake is reporting that a group of prominent developers have been working with the executives of billboard companies on a framework that could change the makeup of massive advertisements along several major roads leading into the heart of Downtown Salt Lake City. The work was facilitated by Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s chief of staff, marking the first cooperation between billboard companies and the office of the mayor in recent years.
The focus is around improving the visitor experience when entering Salt Lake City off the interstate, namely the portion around billboard design and placement. The area identified for a potential overlay district includes east-west surface highways owned by the Utah Department of Transportation leading to and from the interstate I-15.
The same area includes a significant group of developments in an area developers have dubbed the Post District. That district is being filled with mixed-use new and retrofitted buildings that will bring hundreds of housing units, restaurants, bars and office space.
Due to existing state laws and local ordinances around the placement and movement of billboards in Salt Lake City, several of the Post District buildings were literally designed around existing advertisements.
The framework around the suggested billboard overlay district include flexibility around heights, sizes and configuration of the signs.
The developers have an interest in the work because billboards often complicate or block development. The Post District shows that, under the current legal framework, several city blocks can receive tens of millions of dollars in investment to completely change an area yet the billboards would remain unmoved through it all.
Among the broad changes agreed to in the new proposed framework:
- 300 square feet and 672 square feet sign faces, which they say is the industry standard.
- Greater flexibility around sign configuration and relocation when property owners and the billboard industry agree.
- Flexibility around billboard spacing.
- New requirements around setbacks, height and placement, with placement that doesn’t impede development, keeps billboards visible in the overlay zone and allows for beautification of the Grand Boulevards.
Reagan Outdoor, YESCO and Saunders Outdoor are represented in the discussions.
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