July 12–19, 2001

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Wall Papers

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Banner day: While complaining about advertising wraps, Knight-Ridder paid for these illegal banners at Suburban Station.

More than once, the Inquirer and Daily News have railed against the evils of illegally placed billboards. Over the past couple years, both papers have run editorials and columns chastising the city for failing to enforce its own billboard ordinance and allowing outdoor advertisers to hang signs at their pleasure, in exchange for large political contributions.

So isn’t it interesting that the newspapers’ website, www.philly.com, is being advertised on a large — not to mention illegal — wallwrap hanging from scaffolding on Suburban Station at 16th Street and JFK Boulevard? The advertisement runs the length of the building facing 16th Street.

AdSmart Outdoor Advertising placed the drape for Philly.com on June 8. Thaddeus Bartkowski, vice president for the company, says he realized from the outset that there was a possibility Licenses and Inspections would cite the sign for zoning violations. Obviously, AdSmart opted to hang it anyway.

But Bartkowski’s instinct was right-on. L&I has given the agency until July 16 to take down the wallscape, and the company plans to comply with that order. If not, L&I officials say they will be happy to remove it themselves. The philly.com wallscape will have been up for 37 days by the deadline.

Philly.com referred questions to AdSmart. (The City Paper has a partnership with philly.com, which carries some CP content.)

Bartkowski contends that even if AdSmart had attempted to obtain a zoning permit for the wallwrap before tacking it up on the scaffolding, those efforts would have likely failed.

“City ordinances don’t provide any stipulations for non-accessory signs on a temporary structure,” he says. If AdSmart had requested a permit under existing billboard laws, the scaffolding probably would have been down from Suburban Station by the time the zoning board even considered the application, Bartkowski maintains.

By contrast, other cities have a procedure in place for permitting wallscapes, he notes.

“In New York, we could have immediately obtained a permit for a wallscape like the philly.com one by walking into an office and describing its dimensions and proposed location,” Bartkowski says.

He also points out that it was the building’s management company, Jones Lang LaSalle, that initially approached AdSmart about hanging a wallscape on Suburban Station.

“Some people look at outdoor advertising as blight, but here we have ugly scaffolding that the building asked us to brighten up,” Bartkowski says.

Councilman Frank DiCicco is thinking the same thing. He intends to introduce a bill in September that would allow advertisers to hang wallwraps on the scaffolding of buildings under construction. If advertisers were allowed to rent space on City Hall while it undergoes renovations, DiCicco says, it would generate millions of dollars for city coffers.

Bartkowski declines to divulge how much money AdSmart is paying Jones Lang LaSalle to hang the Philly.com wallwrap on the building’s scaffolding. Lou Lombardi, a representative for Jones Lang LaSalle, told City Paper he would check on the situation but never called back.

A billboard in a prime location easily generates $200,000 per year in revenue. About 50,000 commuters pass through Suburban Station each day, according to U.S. Equities Realty, which manages Suburban Station’s retail concourse.

—Gwen Shaffer