Business & Tech

Advertising Could Replace Nature Scenes on Greenfield Billboard

Clear Channel wants to use the west side of an existing billboard, which has been covered with nature scenes for 13 years, for advertising.

Though its snow-covered trees seem out of place lately, the billboard at the Southeast corner of 60th Street and the east-bound I-894 on-ramp has served as a reminder to Greenfield residents and visitors just exactly what season it is supposed to be in Southeastern Wisconsin.

For approximately 13 years, thanks to an agreement between Eller Media Company (which has since merged with Clear Channel) and the City of Greenfield, the west side of the billboard, or the side that faces 60th Street, has been a rotating variety of nature scenes while the side facing the interstate has been used for typical advertising.

Hundreds of cars drive past the location on a daily basis, but only a small apartment complex on the west side of 60th Street faces the nature scenes permanently.

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Now, after more than a dozen years, Clear Channel wants to install two non-illuminated posters on the existing west billboard face, eliminating the nature scenes that have graced that side of the billboard for all these years.

Clear Channel will plead its case at the city’s at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10.

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“They’re saying, ‘Geez, we have this billboard and half of it is doing squat as far as money coming in. Can we revisit the 1998 deal?,'” Community Development Manager Chuck Erickson said. “They want to have useable rental space instead of the nature scenes.”

The billboard itself has an interesting history. It was a hot topic throughout the 1990s, dating back to 1990 when Mt. Carmel (now ) made a request to the city to allow off-premises advertising on the billboard on the northwest corner of its property.

Mt. Carmel and ABC Outdoor Advertising, the billboard’s previous owner, were eventually granted the special use permit and erected the billboard, but issues remained. In 1993, ABC Outdoor even took the city to court because it was denied the request to illuminate the billboard.

“Why there was so much angst back then, I don’t know,” Erickson said.

In 1997, the Common Council – after a lengthy public hearing and much debate – finally allowed ABC Outdoor to illuminate the sign with stipulations, one of which was for the company to address the west side of the billboard, which at the time was just a metal substructure holding the east side of the billboard in place.

The following year, Eller Media Company, then the new owner of the board, approached the city with the idea of allowing the city to use the west side of the existing billboard, but several alderpersons and Plan Commission members, including current Alderman Karl Kastner, shot down that idea, and the council asked the advertising company to come up with a better plan.

Two months later, in June 1998, the company did just that, Eller came up with a handful of nature scenes, from which then-Mayor Tim Seider and the district’s alderman selected the artwork scenes you see rotated today.

After nearly eight years of debate about what to do with the sign and its backside, and 13 years of residents and visitors viewing tranquil nature scenes, the 60th Street billboard debate could be back.


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