Four-story LED billboard planned for Herald Square heads to City Planning hearing Oct. 28

A plan to put a four-story LED advertising sign on the Herald Center, the nine-story building across from Macy's at Herald Square, goes before the City Planning Commission on Wednesday, Oct. 28, after the local community board and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal both urged the city to reject it, amNY reported.

What is proposed

The applicant, Herald Center Department Store of New York LLC, is seeking a zoning text amendment and a special permit for an illuminated, non-flashing advertising sign of about 2,333 square feet at 1293 Broadway, according to the commission's hearing notice in the City Record. The project's environmental filing describes a 40-foot-tall sign beginning 60 to 65 feet above the curb on the building's angled corner facing West 34th Street and Broadway.

Drawings show three connected LED panels wrapping the corner and spanning a combined 58 feet, cycling through ads, amNY reported. Current zoning bars advertising signs at the site and generally limits other signs to 40 feet above street level. The proposed text would cover properties in a commercial district with frontage on Broadway, Sixth Avenue and West 34th Street, which Community Board 5 says the developer's attorney acknowledged applies only to the Herald Center.

Why neighbors object

JEMB Realty is pursuing the sign through an affiliated company, and the developer's family also owns Herald Towers, a rental building with roughly 690 apartments directly across Sixth Avenue, including 49 rent-stabilized units as of 2025, according to the community board as cited by amNY.

• Community Board 5 voted against the project in September. Its analysis estimated the sign could be visible from 53 buildings within five blocks, with about 1,700 homes. It said the developer had not committed to brightness limits and had offered to consider blackout shades for Herald Towers tenants case by case, which the board called inadequate.
• Hoylman-Sigal recommended rejection on Oct. 14, arguing that rewriting zoning for one building could invite similar requests and calling for a broader plan for lit advertising around Herald Square. He wrote that a sign next to a 691-unit residential building conflicts with rules meant to limit light trespass into homes.

JEMB argues the sign would face the square rather than Herald Towers, would not materially add to ambient light in an area already full of illuminated ads, and could help revive the area's struggling retail corridor, amNY reported. JEMB did not answer amNY's further questions.

How to watch or testify

The commission's hearing starts at 10 a.m. Oct. 28 in the City Planning hearing room on the lower concourse of 120 Broadway and is livestreamed on the Department of City Planning's website, with testimony accepted in person, by Zoom or by phone. The community board's and borough president's recommendations are advisory; the commission votes on the application after the hearing.