A bid to permit digital billboards in elements of San Antonio is a step nearer to approval.
A council committee accepted a plan Thursday for a digital signage program that may go earlier than the total council within the coming months.
If it passes, San Antonio might quickly have the form of digital promoting screens seen in cities like Denver, Atlanta and West Hollywood.
The 2-year pilot mission would enable off-premise promoting and require modifications to the Metropolis’s signal code, which regulates such promoting. The adverts must meet sure standards for the content material and the billboard’s time can be shared with the town for public messaging and digital artwork.
A share of every billboard’s income would go to the town, which might use the funds to assist arts applications.
The committee’s vote got here after a dozen folks, together with representatives of the Conservation Society of San Antonio, appeared earlier than the committee opposing the mission, first proposed in 2022.
“You possibly can attempt to put lipstick on the pig,” stated Patti Zaiontz, a former president of the Conservation Society of San Antonio. “However these are billboards. They’re digital billboards. They’re flashy. They aren’t going to advertise the historical past and tradition of San Antonio.”
Kathleen Trenchard referred to as the mission a Computer virus. “Would the anticipated revenues from the proposed Digital Media Program justify promoting our eyeballs and people of our guests?” she requested. “After seeing what this system did to downtown Denver, I believe not. We should do higher. Si se puede.”
Centro San Antonio President and CEO Trish DeBerry stated her group sees this system as constructive for San Antonio.
“We imagine it may be carried out tastefully, pragmatically, in a method that enhances downtown and the present magnificence that we’ve in downtown,” she stated.
Mike Shannon, director of the town’s Growth Providers Division, which spearheaded the mission, proposed some choices and necessities for this system based mostly on suggestions from earlier briefings and a sequence of stakeholder conferences.
Shannon additionally outlined among the necessities that may restrict the quantity and dimension of the billboards and their placement within the metropolis.
Billboards couldn’t be put in in locations the place they are often considered from the River Stroll, and billboards couldn’t go up on any constructing that’s designated historic.
All signage in historic districts would require assessment by the Historic and Design Overview Fee and the town’s Workplace of Historic Preservation, Shannon stated.
The three choices he pitched for a way this system would work included various levels of income sharing, income splits and the period of time the town would have the ability to use it for public messages and to showcase the work of native artists.
District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran stated she would assist Possibility A for its larger assist of the humanities, “that we all know goes to face some points and a few struggles as we can not look federally for applications to return down.”
Ten neighborhoods had been recognized for the pilot program, together with areas close to Port San Antonio, Toyota Subject and the Blue Star Arts District.
However District 4 Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia and others members of the Council’s Planning and Neighborhood Growth Committee requested for the King William neighborhood, the place Blue Star is located, to be prevented.
Members additionally requested for extra dialogue about together with the Pearl Brewery District.
District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo steered that this system’s time sharing mirror what is finished with the town’s data kiosks. However she additionally expressed concern over the kind of content material that will likely be allowed.
“My expectation is that there’s not commercials by way of vaping,” Castillo stated.
District 9 Councilman John Braveness supported the thought of the billboards lighting up elements of the town and utilizing the income to assist the humanities group, maybe even Centro, he stated.
Although District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez stated he thinks some cities have created ugly situations with digital billboards, he helps the proposal and believes San Antonio is implementing them “artfully and thoughtfully.”
“My concern is that it’ll be perceived … that what we’re approving immediately is digital billboards all over the place, and that what all of us need is for San Antonio to appear like downtown Tokyo or Occasions Sq. [and] the Las Vegas Strip,” he stated. “I don’t assume there’s anyone on this room who desires that.”
