There’s a supersized digital billboard rising downtown. Will Miami make it illegal?

The Pérez Art Museum Miami calls its new 10-story billboard an “iconic sculptural object.”

Outraged neighbors call it digital blight, a supersized advertising canvas they want city commissioners to block before construction crews can finish building it by Biscayne Bay.

“We are not Times Square, Las Vegas or Hong Kong harbor,” said James Torres, president of the Downtown Neighbors Alliance. “The size of that monster, the invasiveness of the light intruding into people’s homes, the tacky nature of commercial advertising that will be changing every eight seconds — it’s unacceptable.”

The origin of the sign can be traced back to January 2023, when then-city of Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla sponsored legislation that more than doubled the limit on the kind of billboard allowed in that part of Miami — from 750 square feet to 1,800 square feet.

In the 10 months that followed, Díaz de la Portilla’s political committee took in $225,000 from a different committee that received most of its funding from Orange Barrel Media, an Ohio advertising company that struck a seven-figure deal with PAMM to build the billboard and sell the space. The entity that gave the money to Díaz de la Portilla’s political committee is run by an Orange Barrel lobbyist, former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff.

Díaz de la Portilla, who was suspended from office in September after an arrest on bribery charges in a separate matter, said there was no connection between the looser sign rules and donations from Sarnoff’s Truth is the Daughter of Time committee.

“I only support legislation if it’s good public policy,” Díaz de la Portilla said in a text message this week.

The 1,800-square-foot LED billboard under construction off Interstate 395 is massive by local standards. Miami-Dade County caps free-standing billboards at 750 square feet, but cities can opt for larger signs under certain circumstances. Statewide, Florida limits commercial billboards to 950 square feet, but those rules don’t apply if the signs don’t include commercial advertising.

“That would be considered a large billboard,” said Anna Bager, president of the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, a billboard-industry group. “And also what we would call spectacular — something that is eye-catching with lots of opportunity.”

Now, three jumbo billboards are planned for the area, with a pair of digital signs also slated for the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts a few blocks away.

Mock-ups of the 100-foot-tall PAMM billboard on Orange Barrel’s website showed the potential for national brands seeking eyeballs in the Miami market, according to screenshots a rival billboard firm’s lobbyist sent to city officials on Jan. 24.

The renderings show a Christian Dior model filling the billboard screen in one image and a hypothetical promo for the Barbie movie in another. They were captured from a promotional video on Orange Barrel’s website, Michael Llorente, a lobbyist working for competitor Outfront Media, told city commissioners in a Jan. 24 letter.

PAMM says the new billboard structure will generate at least $1 million a year in revenue for the museum. The institution is calling the sign designed by Miami’s Arquitectonica both a work of art and vital to the nonprofit’s mission.

“Our digital outdoor media installation will not look like a standard billboard. It truly will be an iconic sculptural object,” Franklin Sirmans, director of PAMM, said in response to emailed questions. “The critical income earned from the partnership will be largely dedicated to the maintenance of our beautiful building and grounds.”

The county-owned Arsht Center declared the financial details of its contract with Orange Barrel Media to be trade secrets in releasing a redacted version of the document after a Miami Herald records request. Mark Rosenblum, chief financial officer for PAMM, told city commissioners the museum’s 20-year deal with Orange Barrel guaranteed $1 million in revenue a year but said that the annual income could go as high as $3 million.

Like PAMM, the Arsht Center pitches its entry into the billboard business as a boon for the nonprofit institution and not the architectural affront claimed by critics.

“The signs have been designed by Pelli Clarke & Partners Architects, the original architects of the Center, and will be visually complementary to our facility,” the Arsht Center said in a statement. “At pedestrian level, the signs will have an artistic feel and lend themselves to selfie opportunities.”

The Arsht and PAMM billboards wouldn’t be the largest advertising options in Miami. City rules allow fixed ads on “murals” affixed on building walls that can be 10,000 square feet under the county cap. While those can be illuminated, they’re not digital screens.

Residents trying to undo the looser sign rules sponsored by Díaz de la Portilla last year told Miami commissioners on Jan. 25 that the city doesn’t need more advertising structures.

“There are advertisements everywhere you look — in the air, on the ground, in the water,” Miami resident Nathan Kurland said at the meeting. “Repeal this ordinance so that we can get back to having a city that enhances beauty.”

Commissioners deferred a final vote on the billboards to their Feb. 8 meeting.

The five-member City Commission passed the legislation doubling the billboard sizes allowed near Arsht and PAMM on Jan. 12, 2023. Only Commissioner Manolo Reyes voted against it.

In the months after the supersized sign rules became law, Díaz de la Portilla’s political committee enjoyed an influx of cash from the Truth committee as the commissioner was running for reelection in a race he lost in November.

At the start of 2022, Sarnoff’s Truth is the Daughter of Time had less than $17,000 in the bank, according to state filings. In the next 24 months, the committee raised $480,000 in donations — all but $10,000 came from Orange Barrel and Ike Smart City, an Orange Barrel subsidiary that has a city contract for digital kiosks.

Funded almost entirely with Orange Barrel donations, the Truth committee donated to a dozen local candidates and committees throughout 2023. The top beneficiary, with $225,000 in donations, was the Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade political committee.

Díaz de la Portilla serves as chair of the committee, which he launched in 2018 during a failed run for County Commission and kept operating after winning a commission seat in Miami the following year. In the Sept. 13 affidavit for his arrest, investigators wrote that the Proven Leadership committee was “operated” by Díaz de la Portilla.

He is facing state charges alleging he supported legislation for a private school in exchange for campaign donations and gifts. The case had no connection to the sign ordinance he sponsored.

In a statement, a representative for Orange Barrel Media and Ike Smart City said the companies are active donors in their communities that follow the rules.

“Such donations are always made in full compliance with applicable law, and recipients are never given direction or instruction by OBM or IKE as to how contributed funds should be utilized,” the statement read. The company also said it doesn’t tell donation recipients how to spend the money. Sarnoff said in an interview he decided Truth would give Díaz de la Portilla’s committee donations in 2023 because “he was an incumbent and running again.”

The tie to Díaz de la Portilla is helping fuel a bid to block the signs at Arsht and PAMM. Miami Commissioner Damian Pardo, who represents the area, wants to repeal the 2023 ordinance and block the billboards at the Arsht and the PAMM, where construction crews have already erected the structure needed to house the digital sign.

“It goes to our campaign theme about the undue influence of money,” said Pardo, who was elected in November and owns what tax records describes as a house with about 1,600 square feet of living space. “I know that an 1,800-square-foot sign that is larger than my home is out of scale and character for the neighborhood.”