Convention Center in Philly is building two new large digital billboards

The Convention Center plans to break ground this summer on a long-expected pair of digital billboards that will light opposite ends of the 2-million-square-foot Center City complex, an anchor of Philadelphia’s tourism industry.

The billboards will also tie into new digital signage inside the building.

The taller of the pair will be at the center’s truck-marshaling yard in the southeast corner of Seventh and Callowhill Streets and rise 87 feet from the ground, with angled faces up to 55 feet wide facing east and west, according to a permit from the state Department of Labor and Industry, which reviews signage proposals for state agencies such as the Convention Center.

“The base is elaborate. It’s angled up. It’s done artistically,” said Stephen Shepper, director of engineering and capital projects for the Convention Center.

That sign will tower above the neighboring Vine Street Expressway (I-676) and be visible from the Ben Franklin Bridge to 30th Street Station, said John McNichol, the center’s president and chief executive. “You’ll see it as you come off I-95.”

The other sign, 67 feet tall and up to 75 feet wide, will be built at the Race Street end of the center’s North Broad Street facade, facing north toward Temple University and south toward the center’s western entrance. Because it’s “tucked into” a corner of the center, it won’t be fully visible from City Hall. “We wanted to avoid obstructing the sidewalk,” McNichol said.

“That sign will look like a big tree,” Shepper said. “There’s a water feature and some rocks.”

“We hope to have them built by midsummer,” McNichol said.

According to McNichol, Thaddeus Bartkowski of Catalyst Experiential, a suburban billboard developer that has built similar signs along the Schuylkill Expressway, U.S. 202, I-95, and other main roads and across New Jersey, has arranged construction after years of planning and lobbying. He credits state budget director Uri Monson with helping speed the project.

Bartkowski is expected to sell the billboards, potentially worth millions, to an out-of-town company that operates billboards and lighted signs for advertisers across the United States. He didn’t return calls seeking comment.

“I don’t care if he gives it away, as long as we have the deal for editorial control of the content,” McNichol said.

The Convention Center expects to collect “north of $250,000 a year” in advertising fees for the signs, he said. “It’s a guaranteed revenue stream.”

Philadelphia has a long-standing ordinance regulating traditional billboards.

In 2015, the city passed a law regulating digital billboards, such as these new Convention Center signs. That proposal was backed by Catalyst, among other billboard interests, and received support from leaders of both political parties. Opponents included a city-based chapter of the national nonprofit Scenic America, which lobbies against “visual blight.” It is no longer active in the region, according to the group’s national leaders.

The city collected around $2.7 million in real estate taxes from billboards with an assessed value totaling $194 million last fiscal year, said Ada Schwemler, spokesperson for the city’s law department. The city also collected around $3.4 million from a special “outdoor advertising” tax.

Outdoor advertising tax collections this year are running ahead of last year’s levels, city tax reports show. The city also imposes its “use and occupancy” tax on billboards, as it does on other business structures.

McNichol said he expects the new signs to advertise events at the center such as medical and financial conventions, the annual flower show, car show, tattoo show, as well as outside advertisers, with images in a digital rotation.

The new signs could be linked with indoor digital signage that McNichol says the Convention Center is planning to buy.

“I’ll be putting significant capital into an entirely new digital package inside the building,” he said. “It’s so much cheaper for customers to come in and buy digital assets and signage than to print and hang banners” and hire labor to set them up.

Bartkowski pioneered the digital signs that now mark highway entrances to dozens of suburban Philadelphia and New Jersey towns. Some were tied to elaborate “green walls,” fountains, and even public facilities. High expenses and a slowdown in the business in the early 2020s put him in conflict with lenders who had financed some of his projects, forcing several finished and some unfinished projects to be sold at court-approved auctions to help pay debts.

Asked how the Convention Center would protect the water feature on the Broad Street sign from crowds and the wear and tear that ages city buildings, engineer Shepper said: “We have a maintenance crew. I might have to buy some rubber boots and brushes. It’s a familiar situation in the city.”