By Steve Plunkett
Boca Raton’s only billboard might disappear if its owner and the city can agree on how soon it would happen and what types of advertising would not appear.
City Council members signaled a willingness to reach an agreement on June 12 after Outfront Media LLC offered a 40-year deal to replace the sign with an LED board, give Boca Raton at least $8.2 million of its advertising revenue, and then demolish the billboard in the year 2063.
But council members weren’t keen on the agreement lasting 40 years.
“The length of the period of time does seem to be quite long,” council member Marc Wigder said.
“The 40 years for me seems extraordinarily long,” Mayor Scott Singer said.
“That’s a huge thing for me as well,” council member Fran Nachlas said.
Boca Raton got jurisdiction over the billboard, at Butts Road and Glades Road, in its 2003 annexation of unincorporated county land that brought it and the Town Center mall into the city limits.
Attorney Ele Zachariades, representing Outfront, said the LED proposal would modernize the “tri-face” sign, which uses mechanical moving parts, to a digital, changeable message.
“We are, if I recall, the home of the personal computer, of IBM, and we have one billboard that sits there quite archaic,” she said. “We are merely asking to bring it forward to the 21st century.”
Chris Ashley of Outfront said an electronic billboard would be more aesthetically pleasing and his company would landscape the base with native plants to help hide the support column.
He also offered to give the city free public service announcements and messages such as hurricane warnings and endangered children or seniors, and to abide by a list of prohibited advertisements such as for political campaigns or adult services.
“In summary, it’s a win-win,” Ashley said. “We get the upgraded structure, we get increased revenue, you all get a revenue share of that. You get the benefits that we discussed on Amber Alerts, emergency management, community messaging.
“The alternative is the billboard stays there as it is for the foreseeable future.”
The City Council with a different makeup turned down a similar offer two years ago that would have given Boca Raton only about $50,000 a year in ad revenue.
“If we really, really, at the end of the day, want the billboard to go away, this is how we get that to happen. And I would just like to see newer technology,” Deputy Mayor Monica Mayotte said.
Zachariades will continue to work with city staff to come up with a proposal more in line with the council’s thinking.
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