Motion Picture Academy Wants to Festoon Historic Building with Advertising Signs

SAVING LA’S PAST-The Los Angeles Conservancy calls the former May Co. department store at the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and Fairfax Ave. the city’s “grandest remaining example” of Streamline Moderne architecture. But plans are now afoot to adorn the iconic building with thousands of square feet of advertising signs, including storefront windows converted to animated digital displays and five-story supergraphic signs wrapped around the building’s curved corners.   

This signage is part of a proposed redevelopment of the building into an Academy of Motion Pictures museum. According to the draft environmental impact report (DEIR) for the project, the signs would be used to advertise exhibitions and special events at the museum, which is tentatively planned to open in 2017. 

The building was designed as the May Co. department store in 1939 and is registered as a city Historic-Cultural Monument. After the department store closed in the 80’s the building was purchased by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and used as a temporary exhibition space. 

Here are the major signage elements, as detailed in the DEIR. 

• Illuminated five-story supergraphic signs on three of the buildings corners, plus one beside the building’s distinctive gold-colored entry tower. Total 5,768 sq. ft. 
• 16 permanent digital displays in storefront windows along Wilshire Blvd. and Fairfax Ave. with full animation. Total 1906 sq. ft. 
• 11 temporary digital displays in fifth floor windows with full animation, for up to 12 special events per year. Total 1790 sq. ft. 
• 8 illuminated flagpole signs along Wilshire Blvd. and Fairfax Ave. Total 512 sq. ft. 
• Projected signs with color and animation covering entire building faces, for up to 12 special events per year on either Wilshire Blvd. or Fairfax Ave. frontages, or up to 6 special events on both frontages. 

The permanent digital signs would be allowed to operate between dawn and 10 p.m. Digital displays for special events would be allowed to operate until 2 a.m. There is no proposed limit on the lighting of non-digital signs. Special event signage could operate for up to 3 days, but temporary signage would be allowed for up to 30 days, with a maximum of 90 days per calendar year. The size, type, and location of temporary signage isn’t specified by the DEIR. 

Because some of the sign types as well as the overall quantity of signage isn’t allowed by city code, the project is seeking approval of a special sign district. According to the DEIR, the proposed signage is compatible with the “aesthetic character” of the building and will “contribute in a positive way to the visual environment” of the area. 

• For detailed news coverage of the Academy Museum project, click here.   
• Comments on the signage proposed in the DEIR can be made until Oct. 14.   Comments should be addressed to: 

Luciralia Ibarra

Environmental Analysis Section

Department of City Planning

Case Number: ENV-2013-1531-EIR

[email protected]

 

(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight coalition.  He can be reached at: [email protected]) Photo credit:  Hunter Kerhart, courtesy LA Conservancy

-cw

 

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CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 82

Pub: Oct 10, 2014