City Hall
Controversial Sign Code Change Would Only Impact Six Buildings
Last week, the Seattle P-I ran a splashy, page-topping story about a controversial proposal to allow lighted signs on downtown buildings. Headlined, "City wants to let corporate logos into Seattle skyline," the story noted that although "Seattle has long protected its skyline from advertising ... that could change." (I first reported on the proposal back in July
).
However, according to staff for council planning committee chair Sally Clark, the proposal would only apply to six downtown buildings---and it's unclear whether any of those tenants besides Russell Investments, which has expressed an interest in putting its name on top of the Washington Mutual building, are interested in advertising themselves on their buildings.
The proposal would only allow so-called "major tenants"---those renting more than 200,000 square feet of office space---to put signs on buildings they lease, and only one major tenant per building could have a sign. Budweiser and Dodge wouldn't be able to take over the skyline, as some have implied: The signs would have to advertise the tenants themselves, not unrelated companies. Of eight tenants that qualify in Seattle, four share two buildings: Nordstrom and Russell are both in the Washington Mutual building, and Perkins Coie and Davis Wright Tremaine are in the nearby Washington Mutual Tower.
Here's the distribution of those six buildings (for larger map, click the link below):
View Seattle major tenants in a larger map
Obviously, more huge companies could decide to move to Seattle in the future (Russell just announced it was moving here earlier this year). However, the alarm the proposal caused---critics have said it will lead to the "Times Squaring" of Seattle---seems wildly out of proportion with even the potential impact. For comparison, hotels have been allowed to have lighted signs since the mid-1990s, and in those 15 years, only eight hotels have elected to put signs on their buildings.
The proposal, which has not yet been formally drafted, will be heard in Clark's Committee on the Built Environment.
However, according to staff for council planning committee chair Sally Clark, the proposal would only apply to six downtown buildings---and it's unclear whether any of those tenants besides Russell Investments, which has expressed an interest in putting its name on top of the Washington Mutual building, are interested in advertising themselves on their buildings.
The proposal would only allow so-called "major tenants"---those renting more than 200,000 square feet of office space---to put signs on buildings they lease, and only one major tenant per building could have a sign. Budweiser and Dodge wouldn't be able to take over the skyline, as some have implied: The signs would have to advertise the tenants themselves, not unrelated companies. Of eight tenants that qualify in Seattle, four share two buildings: Nordstrom and Russell are both in the Washington Mutual building, and Perkins Coie and Davis Wright Tremaine are in the nearby Washington Mutual Tower.
Here's the distribution of those six buildings (for larger map, click the link below):
View Seattle major tenants in a larger map
Obviously, more huge companies could decide to move to Seattle in the future (Russell just announced it was moving here earlier this year). However, the alarm the proposal caused---critics have said it will lead to the "Times Squaring" of Seattle---seems wildly out of proportion with even the potential impact. For comparison, hotels have been allowed to have lighted signs since the mid-1990s, and in those 15 years, only eight hotels have elected to put signs on their buildings.
The proposal, which has not yet been formally drafted, will be heard in Clark's Committee on the Built Environment.
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