Sky’s Not the Limit on Tower Signs

The battle for the Los Angeles downtown skyline continues, with the forces of good design counterattacking real estate interests with a report recommending the banning of lettering and logos at or near the rooftops of new buildings.

The much-welcomed report, prepared by the staff of the city Community Redevelopment Agency and circulated among city officials and agencies and other interested groups, will be the subject of a public hearing Wednesday at 5 p.m. in the fourth floor auditorium of the AT&T; building at 611 West 6th St.

Given the history of anti-sign efforts, the sweeping recommendation will need all the support it can get as it goes up against the always anxious real estate community at the hearing before the agency.

Many brokers feel that the promise of signs on a tower gives them that needed “extra” to close a big lease with a major tenant, and so what if the signs look tacky. Their chief concern, they say, is pleasing a tenant, not an arbitrary urban design policy, even if it might improve the value of the building and the image of the surrounding business district.

At last report, late last year, the good-design forces had lost a skirmish to the real estate interests when the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board yielded to the pleas of the developers of the Citicorp and Coast Savings office towers for permission to erect signs on top of their buildings.

The signs planned by Oxford Properties for the mammoth Citicorp tower, now rising at 7th and Figueroa streets, have been described by those who have seen them as “cheap.” One would think that this is not exactly the image a major financial corporation coming into Los Angeles would want.

The signs planned by the Reliance Development Group for the Coast Savings tower under construction at 1000 Wilshire Blvd., are said to be relatively discreet, but nonetheless are not needed to identify the building and certainly not needed to further clutter up the downtown skyline.

As it is, the present skyline is not particularly attractive or distinctive. There already are too many tacky signs, among them, the Convention Center, Thomas Cadillac, the Hilton, Coldwell Banker, Bank of America and Union Bank, and too many tacky, box-topped, boring corporate edifices.

There is the hope in the near future for a more distinctive skyline of generally thinner, more detailed and tapered buildings; a few with engaging roof lines. It is a hope engendered by such recent constructions as the Crocker and Wells Fargo towers and proposals for Library Square.

However, that hope was dampened by the decision of the agency board to overrule a staff recommendation and allow the Citycorp and Coast Federal signs. The board based its decision on the fact there was no firm city policy regarding the downtown skyline to guide developers, and therefore was unfair to developers.

(Isn’t it odd that most city boards always seem so concerned about what is fair and unfair to developers, apparently forgetting that it is the broad public they are supposed to represent, not just those of special interests?)

The decision sent the agency staff scurrying to the drawing boards. I was told that this column helped also when it declared that a sign on a building was a symbol of mediocrity, that “if not blocked before it is bolted down, could become infectious and turn the fledgling downtown Los Angeles skyline into a smear of signs, each one trying to be bigger and shinier than the last. Signs get that way if not controlled.”

Six months later the staff has produced a refreshingly frank report reviewing the issues and recommending that not only signs, but also logos, be banned from the tops of all new buildings downtown.

“The complete prohibition of skyline signage would establish a consistent aesthetic while retaining the advantages of easy definition and administration,” states the report. It continues:

“In cities such as New York, Dallas, Houston and Minneapolis, signs atop tall buildings are virtually absent; the resultant aesthetic places emphasis on building form by eliminating the distraction of signage. This example set by these cities also indicates that a no-signage policy has little negative effect on the leasability of tenant space if the policy is consistent, universally applied and predictable. In fact, from suburban developments to major business centers, enhancement of the overall image of an area has been known to enhance areawide property values and economic desirability.”

In short, good urban design policy pays.

The problem, of course, is what to do with the existing signs now strewn across the downtown skyline, which, as the report notes, will be more conspicuous than ever under a policy banning all new signs.

“A number of options are available to mitigate this disadvantage over time, including amortized removal and financial assistance, to bring nonconforming conditions in line with the policy,” the report states optimistically.

Following the public hearing, the report and its policies will go to the agency board. If the agency adopts the policies, the report recommends that the City Council “be requested to enact a similar ordinance establishing a compatible policy for surrounding areas, such as Temple/Beaudry, to prevent a clash with the image of the core area.”

It is the sort of statement that should send a shiver down the spine of billboard interests and right into the pockets of their lobbyists.