Billboard bonanza on Independence

Those are some big honkin' signs

The following article appeared in the Feb. 9, 2024, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.

---

Two giant signs on Independence Boulevard got special city council approval — and developers say they’re the key to saving a 1960s building that’s iconic in east Charlotte 

UNUSUAL SIGN DESIGN: The two-story building attached to the V-shaped billboards includes an outdoor patio directly under the signs. 

by Cristina Bolling

The first thing you notice about the ginormous V-shaped electronic highway signs on East Independence Boulevard just west of Albemarle Road are their size — each at a code-busting 24 feet high by 44 feet wide, they tower far and above any other electronic highway signs in Charlotte.

The second thing you notice is what they’re attached to — not the typical steel poles sticking out of the ground, but an actual building, which has incorporated the signs into its design with what may turn into the first-ever restaurant patio where you can enjoy a beverage directly under the glow of an ad for a tax preparer or car dealer. 

Put these two things together, and you have what could be seen as a superlative in Charlotte marketing — the city’s biggest billboards on perhaps one of the most unusual of pedestals.