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Uptown Charlotte Outdoor Advertising/Signage


UptownGrrl

Uptown Billboards  

78 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you think about allowing more outdoor advertising uptown?

    • Would add to city's urban character
      67
    • Would look cluttered and distract from feel of uptown
      8
    • Don't care
      3
  2. 2. If okay,

    • limit to small print billboards
      7
    • draw the line at large format building wraps
      12
    • all out LED, flashing, blinking, Times Square type signage would be cool
      59


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I think it depends on context. That type of signage would be appropriate for a complex such as Epicentre, or around the Arena, but not appropriate for condos in Fourth Ward.

I used to be the art director for Discovery Place, and we sometimes walked right up to the line with our outdoor advertising. Building wraps, banners, and 3D signage can really draw attention to new exhibits, but sometimes the city would get in a snit. Our 30 foot tall Elmo on top of the building only lasted a day or so before we were told to remove it.

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Is the large JFG sign still up?

yes, it is. and i love it.

as for outdoor ads... i don't really know how i feel. i mean i do get a sudden rush of energy when i see ads all lit up in mobs - in other cities. but i think it's all about the visual stimulation... the advertising itself usually is not appealing. so, thats what i'd fear if we totally relax the laws... we'd end up with a building wrapped with 100' tall okafor or junior.

also IMO, by not allowing liberal signage could be another way charlotte sets itself apart from other cities. currently charlotte boosts a crisp, clean, platinum skyline... would you put bumper stickers all over your mercedes cl500 coupe?

*turbocraig, you don't have to answer that... ha,ha.

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What? I don't have a CL500... you must be thinking of someone else on this board. But I do have "4W" sticker on my car!!

no, i just know that you like your classy european cars... and that you probably wouldn't put stickers all over it.

does "4W" stand for "fourth ward"? or rather "FOR WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON"?

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Thats pretty exciting metro, when was that taken? I remember with various trips to tokyo, hong kong, shanghai, NYC, and even london, and thinking the advertising was just such a great addition to the cityscape. Timesquare is definately one of my favourite places on earth, and its so full of things to look at and definately can't be characterized as sterile, plain, and blah like our CBD can. I certainly hope the city can work around this ordinance, or at least change it a little bit to add some more interest we already have a big step with the arena and the ad banner around the Epicenter site.

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Didn't the city agree to loosen the rules for EpiCentre?

yes. Epicenter just might finally get Charlotte some neon and animation going on in our sterile Center city. This would definately help, since Epicenter is really about as close to the actual center of Uptown as one can be w/out standing at the square. Epicenter's biggest draw to me is not necessarily the building , as much as it is the potential for bright lights and Big city curb appeal.

A2

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I doubt the epicentre will come close to anything as exciting as in the picture above. It will be extremely nice though... I wish we could designate a part of uptown to carry signage like above... it would really help liven up the warehouse area near bank of america stadium after it filled in a bit more, maybe with a midrise or 2..

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Hmmm. I'm coming into this thread a little late and I have to say that I wouldn't be for these large scale ads. It would be one thing to bring visual interest to the city but not with advertising IMO. Art instalations are great, I would also be game for allowing not for profits like Discovery Place to put up more elaborate displays. But when it comes to crap like Cingular ads, I would really prefer not to see it. I think its unattractive clutter, perhaps the colors or graphics can occasionally be stimulating however the message is not. I like cinco's comment about the mercedes with bumper stickers and I agree that "no ads" would probably do more to distinguish Charlotte's Uptown from other cities. When people come here they're usually attracted to the cleanliness of uptown, I think ads have, in a strange way, a way of making cities look dirty. Just my opinion.

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  • 1 month later...

Well.....the question of changing billboard restrictions is now up for debate.

Adams Outdoor Advertising is advocating changing to allow new technologies and locations. Primarily they want to allow LED paneled billboards and interactive billboards (billboards that can be linked to radio station commercials for example)

They also want to the city to allow wallscapes....which would be billboards painted directly to a building facade.

The city in turn has organized a citizen's task force. Apparantly the citizen's task force is more than happy with the current regulations, and in fact is encouraging EVEN MORE restrictions than are currently in place.

Below is a list of notes from a recent meeting that they will suggest forming policy around.

1. Allow the new technology (digital, LED, etc.) to be used for new billboards, and allow existing conforming billboards to convert to the new technology in locations where the new billboard would be conforming with respect to size, height, and would meet the following prescribed conditions for spacing:

(a) A minimum separation from any other type of billboard (LED, vinyl, digital, etc.) of 5,000 feet. [This may require the removal of other billboards to meet this condition](b) The changeable image will remain in a fixed position for 30 seconds.

400

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Ok, all I need to ask is how the heck can I get on this task force? I am serious!

This city needs to add vibrancy to its core. This city is growing and the city could make a fortune off of Ad money. Are they that crazy not to entertain the idea of strategically placed ads with some nice neon and LED?

What is it with people who do not want this in the appropriate places? Are they just really boring people, or do they still believe CLT is some farm town that has a few big buildings in its center? This is nuts.

The one gripe, outside of the Interstates (and the lights on the Interstates), that I had when I moved here, is that there is not enough neon and exciting districts in Charlotte with lights.

What is the phrase I am looking for ???? (oh yeah)

Bright lights, Big city!

Get it!.....

Got it!........

Goooooood!.........................

Now build it!

A2

:)

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Well....I can't speak for the entire advisory board, but the person's notes that I posted would probably not be able to keep up with you A2 on a good romp through Uptown....I'll leave it at that.

As far as getting on the board....I think that it is well into its term. There are tons of these boards though on all kinds of issues.

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Don't let the "but it's LED" thing fool you. I've seen many of these things and they're essentually just light up junk mail. Its always and advertisment for some sub-prime lender asking you to refinance your house or change your phone service. This is not the way to go about adding excitment to the city streets IMO. It would be one thing if we were talking about theatre marqees or cool bar signage. Essentually we would be opening the door to an assault on the senses by people that we really don't care to hear from.

Now, if the Carolina Theatre wants to reopen with a flashy light up Marquee, Great! The new movie theatre at Epicentre wants a cool marquee, Great. Discovery Place wants a giant spicket that "snots" on pedestrians, Cool! But that's not what were talking about here and I don't think we should confuse allowing an advertising assault with creating an engaging and stimualting street environment.

Personally, I really like our strict restrictions.

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I think EpiCentre had various types of outdoor signage, marquees, etc, approved as part of their rezoning - so we'll definitely see some interesting colors & vibrancy added to uptown through that. I think as long as things like this are approved through a process like rezoning, we'll have tasteful stuff put up.

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This city is growing and the city could make a fortune off of Ad money.

The model that's being proposed doesn't really allow for any revenue generation for the city - unless there was some sort of tax added on, or if the city happened to be the owner of the building where the ads or wallscapes would go. That's one of the reasons there's so much opposition to relaxing the restrictions -- the only entity to really benefit would be the outdoor ad companies.

There's more to it than just uptown (they also want to be able to put up billboards around exits all the way around 485). But uptown is where they really want to make changes with the LED ads and the large format wallscapes. The problem is that its hard to legislate taste. While the sign companies claim ads would have no more than 15% text and would only go on building facades that would be "improved" with the addition of interesting visuals; once its allowed its hard to maintain any sort of oversight on locations, quantity and particular images or products to be advertised. You don't want to set up some censorship regime, but you might not want some giant blinking cigarette ad right next to the children's library, either.

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I think EpiCentre had various types of outdoor signage, marquees, etc, approved as part of their rezoning - so we'll definitely see some interesting colors & vibrancy added to uptown through that. I think as long as things like this are approved through a process like rezoning, we'll have tasteful stuff put up.

Also, to clarify, the new proposal wouldn't have anything to do with "on site" signage for retail businesses or restaurants - only offsite billboard advertising for other products. So, there's still a chance to build that more urban look with marquees and neon lights and such. The question is do we want to allow product advertising billboards and building-mounted wallscapes on top of that.

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Also, to clarify, the new proposal wouldn't have anything to do with "on site" signage for retail businesses or restaurants - only offsite billboard advertising for other products. So, there's still a chance to build that more urban look with marquees and neon lights and such. The question is do we want to allow product advertising billboards and building-mounted wallscapes on top of that.

I don't see why not, especially on blank walls that we know aren't going anywhere anytime soon. For example, the blank wall across from Epicentre (I think thats the Omni Parking garage). It's boring and ugly - why not put up a billboard to add some color?

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That won't happen because stuffy Charlotteans think a blank boring wall is just fine and nice and conservative.

It's very "Concrete Jungle." An artform to dull the senses.

You would at least think they would have some sort of Omni signage there at least. Of course, that would make too much sense.

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