Miami gave Arsht Center a digital billboard permit. County wants it revoked ‘immediately’
Miami-Dade’s mayor intervened this week over jumbo digital billboards that the county’s Adrienne Arsht Center for Performing Arts asked to build in downtown Miami.
The city issued a permit two weeks ago allowing a billboard company to construct new digital advertising that would stand 100 feet tall outside the privately run county facility off of Interstate 395.
Neighbors in nearby condo towers are fighting the sign plans, along with one already built outside the nearby Pérez Art Museum Miami.
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On Wednesday, the county’s mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, stepped in to halt the sign construction. Her office sent notifications to the city of Miami that Miami-Dade has jurisdiction over permitting and warned the Arsht that it needs county permission to enter into the lucrative advertising venture.
Jimmy Morales, a top deputy under Levine Cava, asked a Miami building official to “immediately revoke” the permit for the Arsht billboard installation near Biscayne Boulevard.
“Miami-Dade County in its capacity as the owner of the Arsht Center Property has not given its consent for permit applications relating to large digital sign(s),” Morales wrote to Luis Torres, the city’s building official, in the May 8 letter.
The correspondence highlights the shifting battleground in a drawn-out fight over a 2023 law change in Miami that more than doubled the size cap on digital billboards in a few locations downtown.
While opponents have been trying to repeal the law, that effort recently lost steam in the Miami City Commission, with the proposed modifications mostly leaving the original rules in place for Arsht and PAMM.
That’s left the groups fighting the signs, including rival billboard companies, to hope Miami-Dade would step in and block the Arsht project before construction began.
An Arsht representative was not available for comment. A city spokesperson did not have an immediate response to Miami-Dade’s letter.
Arsht is partially county funded and operates in a county facility but is overseen by a private board. PAMM also receives county funds but operates in a privately owned building on city land and isn’t subject to the same kind of control by Miami-Dade that Arsht faces.
Orange Barrel Media, an Ohio billboard company, has deals with Arsht and PAMM to build the signs, designed with 1,800-square-feet digital screens. That’s well above the 750-square-foot size limit in place elsewhere in Miami and around the county.
Arsht proposed two digital billboards, though the modified city sign law awaiting final commission approval would reduce that permission to only one under Miami’s rules. Miami-Dade maintains Arsht doesn’t fall under city zoning rules because it sits in a county transit zone under the jurisdiction of the County Commission.
Arsht and PAMM pitch the signs as stylistic, with a mix of advertising and art that will mesh well with their facilities’ architectural designs. They also say the advertising will mean crucial dollars for the nonprofits.
In January, PAMM said its deal with Orange Barrel was worth at least $1 million in annual revenue. Orange Barrel has warned the city that it would sue for more than $100 million in lost revenue from its multi-year agreements if the original 2023 law was repealed.
Arsht’s 2021 contract with Orange Barrel, obtained through a public records request, shows the nonprofit receiving 35% of the revenue the company generates through advertising sales.
The letters from Levine Cava’s top aides do not ban Arsht from pursuing digital billboards. Instead, the correspondence claims the entire Arsht process pursuing the signage — including its multimillion-dollar agreement with Orange Barrel — was misguided and must start fresh with county permission.
“County approval is required prior to constructing the contemplated signage on the Arsht Center property,” Cathy Burgos, the Levine Cava deputy who oversees cultural programs, said in a May 8 letter to Arsht Director Johann Zietsman.
Burgos, the county’s chief community services officer, told Zietsman that “a number of concerns have been raised by the County regarding the contract between the Trust and Orange Barrel Media and the contemplated signage.”
While Miami-Dade has demanded that Miami revoke the performance center’s permit, the county also wants Arsht to pull the plug, too.
“Contact the City of Miami to immediately cancel the permit,” Burgos wrote Zietsman.
