A developer’s plan to install a four-story LED billboard overlooking Herald Square is facing fresh opposition from Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who has joined the local community board in urging the city to reject the proposal over concerns about its impact on nearby apartments, including hundreds in a building owned by the developer’s family.
The plan would require the city to change its zoning rules to allow a 2,333-square-foot advertising display on Herald Center, across from Macy’s. The developer argues that the sign could help revive the area’s struggling retail corridor, while Community Board 5 says the applicant offered to consider blackout shades for tenants bothered by the light.
The proposal now heads to the City Planning Commission, which is scheduled to hold a public hearing Wednesday, Oct. 28.
JEMB Realty, through an affiliated company, wants to install the billboard at Herald Center, a nine-story commercial building at 1293 Broadway. The developer’s family also owns Herald Towers, a residential building with roughly 690 apartments directly across Sixth Avenue.
Architectural drawings show the billboard wrapping around the building’s angled corner in three connected LED panels, spanning a combined 58 feet. The display would begin about 60 feet above street level and rise another 40 feet, cycling through commercial advertisements.
Current zoning rules prohibit advertising signs at the property and generally limit other signs to 40 feet above street level. JEMB is seeking a zoning text amendment and special permit to allow the larger, higher display.
The proposed zoning language would apply to properties in a particular commercial district with frontage on Broadway, Sixth Avenue and West 34th Street — criteria that, according to Community Board 5, the developer’s attorney acknowledged would apply only to Herald Center.
Hoylman-Sigal took issue with that approach in an Oct. 14 recommendation urging the city to reject the application.
The borough president argued that rewriting zoning rules for one building could encourage similar requests elsewhere in Manhattan. Instead, he called for a broader plan governing illuminated advertising throughout Herald Square, with input from residents, businesses and other neighborhood stakeholders.
His recommendation followed Community Board 5’s September vote against the project.
“Given the inherent conflicts between bright lights and people seeking a good night’s sleep, New York City Zoning regulations generally seek to limit light trespass from commercial signage into residential homes,” he wrote. “The location of the Proposed Sign, directly adjacent to a 691-unit residential building, is in direct conflict with these precedents.”
‘Times Square everywhere’
For Nancy Aber Goshow, chair of Community Board 5’s Land Use, Housing and Zoning Committee, the concern goes beyond one billboard.
At the board’s Sept. 10 meeting, she warned that approving the project could open the door to similar displays elsewhere in the city.
“To me, this is something I call Times Square everywhere,” Goshow said. “We need to have Times Square where it is.”
Goshow questioned the benefit of placing a massive advertisement so high above the sidewalk, arguing that most pedestrians aren’t looking 60 to 100 feet into the air. She also warned that the city’s decades-old signage regulations had not kept pace with digital technology.
The board conducted a three-dimensional analysis estimating that the proposed display could be visible from 53 buildings within five blocks and 89 within 10 blocks.
Within five blocks, the board identified approximately 1,700 residential units. Those figures estimate potential visibility, not how much additional light would enter individual apartments.
In its September resolution, the board said JEMB had not committed to specific brightness limits and had suggested determining appropriate illumination levels after the billboard was installed.
The developer also offered to consider blackout shades for Herald Towers tenants on a case-by-case basis, according to the board, which dismissed the proposal as inadequate.
Herald Towers contains approximately 690 rental apartments, including 49 rent-stabilized units as of 2025, according to the board.
JEMB acknowledges the ownership connection in its zoning filings but maintains that the billboard would face Herald Square rather than directly toward Herald Towers. The developer also argues that the sign would not materially increase ambient light in an area already filled with illuminated advertising.
JEMB Realty did not respond to requests for additional comment, including questions about brightness limits and the proposed blackout shades. Community Board 5 also did not respond to a request for further comment.
Developer points to retail struggles amid a changing Midtown
Louis Jerome, whose family owns Herald Center and Herald Towers, defended the proposal at the September community board meeting, arguing that a new advertising display would fit the character of Herald Square.
The building already has horizontal LED lighting installed during a 2015 renovation. Jerome pointed to displays featuring red, white and blue for July Fourth and orange and blue for the Knicks as examples of how the facade is already illuminated.
He also stressed the family’s ownership of Herald Towers, telling board members that its financial stake in the residential building far outweighed what it expected to earn from the billboard. He said he was willing to discuss further compromises with the board.
Jerome also pointed to the struggles of retailers along West 34th Street, saying that H&M, one of Herald Center’s major tenants, was looking to leave. He described H&M as an anchor for nearby businesses and argued that the billboard could help attract new tenants to the area. H&M’s plans for the location have not been independently confirmed.
JEMB’s written application similarly points to retail vacancies along West 34th Street since the pandemic as part of its case for the project.
Several Herald Towers residents spoke in support of the billboard after Jerome’s testimony to the board. Some praised the building’s management, while others said they were used to the bright lights of Midtown.
Their testimony did not change the board’s recommendation, and not everyone appears to share their outlook. An Oct. 9 complaint filed with the Department of Buildings under Herald Towers’ address, 48 West 34th Street, alleges that light from an existing digital sign near West 34th Street and Sixth Avenue is already entering an apartment at Herald Towers and disrupting the occupant’s sleep.
The dispute also comes as the city prepares for substantial residential growth in Midtown South.
A rezoning approved last year is expected to make way for roughly 10,000 new homes in an area historically dominated by offices and commercial buildings. Herald Center sits outside the rezoned area but near its boundaries.
Hoylman-Sigal cited that shift in his recommendation, arguing that the city needs to balance the needs of commercial districts with those of people living nearby.
He also questioned whether one billboard would deliver the broader economic benefits claimed by the developer, pointing to Times Square and the Penn Center Subdistrict as examples of areas where special signage rules were adopted as part of larger neighborhood plans.
The borough president urged JEMB to return with a revised proposal addressing Herald Square as a whole, rather than seeking an exception for a single building.
The City Planning Commission will hear the application Oct. 28. Both the community board’s and borough president’s recommendations are advisory, and the proposal has not received final approval.
