LA Curbed By Jeff Wattenhofer April 13, 2017
An iconic roadway deserves more billboards!
City staffers in West Hollywood are concerned the Sunset Strip is losing its edge as a creative advertising mecca-they want to amp up the strip’s billboard game.
They’re set to propose next week the installation of more than a dozen new billboards on the Sunset Strip over the next 15 years, according to Wehoville, and an increase in the number that are allowed to be digital.
They say they want to, “facilitate a signage environment that is innovative and noteworthy in contrast to the typical signage that can be found along a less iconic urban roadway.”
Right now, 89 billboards line the 1.6-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard, and there are four digital ones tied to new development projects in the pipeline.
The “Sunset Strip Off-Site Signage Policy” would also allow existing billboards to make modifications, such as “changes to size, lighting, site location and height allowances with proven obstructions if they comply with the proposed regulations.”
Staffers behind the policy change cite the Sunset Strip’s once dominant showcase of creative signage being diminished by innovative advertising found elsewhere in Los Angeles. They claim the proposed change in rules for signs would put the Sunset Strip “once again in the forefront of unique, creative outdoor media.”
According to the policy proposal, West Hollywood is anticipating great demand for those 20 digital billboard slots. To account for this, the city is “proposing a series of non-preferential lotteries to award opportunities to install digital billboard faces.”
Those looking to build new billboards would enter into developer agreements with the city, so that “digital conversions and new billboards…respond to specific site conditions and city priorities.”
The policy establishes seven Billboard Zones that “capture the urban design character” of each area to help determine how many and what types of billboards are appropriate for each zone.
