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The new digital marquee outside Michigan Stadium during the Notre Dame game in September.
(Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News)
Ann Arbor officials are planning to ask the University of Michigan to decommission its new digital billboard outside the Big House.
City Council Member Christopher Taylor, D-3rd Ward, and other council members argue the large marquee on East Stadium Boulevard is too big, too bright and too distracting to drivers with its continually changing messages.
Christopher Taylor
Taylor announced Monday night he and Council Members Margie Teall and Marcia Higgins, both 4th Ward Democrats, are planning to bring forward a resolution at the council's next meeting on Nov. 7 to formally make a request to U-M.
"It is a request to the university — the autonomous university — that they consider decommissioning the billboard," Taylor said. "Or if they decline to do that, that they only utilize and illuminate the billboard in immediate association of events at Michigan Stadium or Crisler Arena."
The video marquee, which was installed a few months ago, is located between Michigan Stadium and Crisler Center and is visible from Stadium Boulevard. It has audio capabilities, stands 21 feet above the ground and is 27 feet tall and 48 feet wide.
U-M athletic director Dave Brandon has said the $2.8 million marquee is in step with the electronic displays featured by other major college athletic programs.
"It happens to be across the street from a golf course so it won't annoy anybody," he said when proposing the marquee to the U-M Board of Regents last year.
But council members say it is bothering people.
"We've gotten a lot of emails from residents who are rightfully upset about this. I think they feel it's a blight on the landscape," Teall said. "I've noticed going over the bridge, it's almost impossible not to look at the billboard, and I worry about that crosswalk that's at the foot of the bridge."
Higgins shared similar concerns.
"It's very distracting as a driver, and that's my biggest concern," she said. "When they're running it during events, that's fine. But to be running it at other times, it really becomes extremely distracting, and we're just very concerned there could be accidents and someone could be hurt very seriously."
The billboard as it looked on Oct. 4.
Taylor said he's given Jim Kosteva, the university's director of community relations, a heads up regarding the forthcoming resolution.
Kosteva told the Ann Arbor News in an email Monday night he doesn't have much to say until he sees exactly what Taylor is proposing.
"While I would indicate that we have received favorable feedback on the marquee from fans and patrons, I am going to withhold any more specific comment until I have had an opportunity to obtain more information about the councilman's intentions and possibly review specific language," Kosteva said.
Kosteva recalled the U-M athletic department used to have three changeable marque signs at Crisler, Yost and Cliff Keen arenas just a few years ago, though he acknowledged those weren't the same size as the new digital billboard, and he's not sure if they were digitally operated.
"But they provided information on upcoming competitions and activities similar to the primary function of the new Crisler marquee," he said.
The new billboard promotes U-M athletics morning, afternoon and night, encouraging fans to visit MGoBlue.com, buy tickets and follow U-M on Twitter and Facebook. But it's not the content of the billboard that city officials are complaining about.
The City Council amended the city's signs and outdoor advertising ordinance in June to prohibit new digital billboards or conversions of old billboards to digital, while imposing limits on the size and brightness of illuminated signs.
Taylor said the university's digital billboard creates the kinds of harms city officials sought to avoid.
"The current sign ordinance, as it stands, was in part animated by a desire to maintain the billboard status quo in the city. By that, I mean no digital billboards," Taylor said. "The stadium billboard is of such a nature and a clear violation of the city's sign ordinance — if the university were bound by the sign ordinance."
The university does not have to follow the city's local ordinances or obey council requests. Nonetheless, the council members behind the resolution are hoping the university will hear the community's concerns and respond.
"It just doesn't seem very appropriate," Higgins said of the billboard. "We talked about the size (as part of the city's sign ordinance), and that just so far exceeded any size that we thought was really feasible within the city limits."
Teall added, "I've never been a fan of electronic or digital billboards on highways or in the city, but this seems like overkill."
Ryan Stanton covers Ann Arbor city hall for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at ryanstanton@mlive.com or 734-623-2529 or follow him on Twitter.