Miami ready to settle court case over jumbo digital billboards in downtown Miami

The city of Miami is on the verge of settling a court fight over a jumbo digital billboard looming over the downtown waterfront, potentially easing the path for similar advertising structures to go up nearby.

In court papers last week, a judge said city lawyers have reached a settlement with the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) over the 1,800-square-foot billboard. In a 4-1 vote Thursday, city commissioners approved the deal, which allows the commercial sign to remain standing 10 stories above the Miami waterfront.

After the billboard’s construction sparked opposition, the city argued that PAMM violated its ground lease with Miami in building the sign without formal approval from the administration. Even so, Miami’s permitting arm had already issued a permit allowing the sign, which was legalized in 2023 legislation that singled out PAMM as being authorized to build a supersized billboard.

The commission’s top critic of the billboard, Commissioner Damian Pardo, was the lone vote against the settlement proposed by city lawyers.

“This is a giveaway,” Pardo said this week of the proposed deal, which allows the sign to remain standing in exchange for a minimum $500,000 yearly payment to the city and a requirement that the billboard go dark after 11 p.m. “This is a gift.” After the vote, Pardo said in a statement: “I was proud to be the lone dissenting vote and fight for the interests of our residents every step of the way.”

Pardo said that he wants residents to have input in any settlement of the case and that the terms should be more favorable to Miami in terms of revenue and restrictions on when the sign can be illuminated. “There’s middle ground somewhere,” he said.

Once finalized, the settlement would appear to end the saga of the PAMM sign, which the City Commission authorized under legislation passed months before Pardo took office two years ago. The rules authorized in 2023 granted special permission to PAMM and the nearby Arsht Center performance hall to build digital billboards more than twice as large as what’s allowed elsewhere in the city.

After the law passed, PAMM secured a city permit for its billboard. The PAMM billboard stands 10 stories above the ground, and construction of the structure last year sparked opposition in the neighborhood.

PAMM’s immediate neighbor, the Frost Museum of Science, urged commissioners to overturn the 2023 law, which Frost executives said brought too much nighttime light to the area. High-rise residents in the neighborhood complained too, likening the ads beaming from the billboard to something from Las Vegas or Hong Kong.

A resident group called the Downtown Neighbors Alliance issued a statement last week calling the settlement a betrayal and saying the proposed PAMM payment “sells off our skyline and quality of life.”

PAMM executives and the billboard company behind the sign, Orange Barrel Media, countered that the area already is awash in lights, particularly from the state’s new “Signature Bridge” on Interstate 395 and its planned illuminated arch. PAMM leaders called the billboard a way to generate private dollars for the privately owned museum that sits on city land and receives $4 million a year from Miami-Dade County.

Led by Pardo, commissioners in May 2024 voted to repeal the sign ordinance and return size limits to their previous levels. Legally, that didn’t impact PAMM’s billboard, which was granted a permit when the larger size limits were the law. But the city also declared that PAMM didn’t follow the rules in securing its permit, rendering the billboard illegal. That prompted the current court fight — PAMM sued Miami last year to have its billboard declared legal — that’s now on the verge of ending..

“The proposed settlement provides clear and responsible guardrails for the operation of the sign program, while bringing full resolution to the matters in dispute,” Eugene Stearns, a lawyer representing PAMM, told CBS 4 in a statement. “PAMM is committed to working collaboratively with the City, and we are glad to put the dispute behind us.”

With the PAMM billboard already up and showing ads, a legal settlement won’t alter the existing view in that area of downtown. But similarly large signs may be on the way.

The Arsht Center, a performance hall owned by Miami-Dade County, still wants to build a pair of digital billboards across the street from PAMM that would be similar in size as outlined in the city rules. That process is currently tied up with county approvals.

Ending the fight over the PAMM sign will allow Arsht to argue it only wants a similar ability to generate private dollars by selling digital ads across the street from a cultural institution doing the same thing. Last week, James Torres, head of the Downtown Neighbors Alliance, told the Miami Herald he expected a PAMM settlement to be a “domino” for the county’s approval process.

In a statement, Arsht President Johann Zietsman praised the future signs as bolstering the center’s future.

“As a non-profit organization, the Arsht Center is always looking for ways to grow so that we can service more people in Miami-Dade — that is our mandate,” the statement said. “Building the proposed digital signs will add significant and reliable annual revenue to support the planned growth … and give us much needed exposure of our programming” from people passing by on busy I-395.

This story was originally published September 24, 2025 at 4:23 PM.