Billboard BY DAVID DYNAK Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews For more information contact me today! For more information contact me today! Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 [email protected] www.wfh.com/matthew.adessa NMLSR ID 150138 Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 [email protected] www.wfh.com/matthew.adessa NMLSR ID 150138 Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews For more information contact me today! Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 [email protected] www.wfh.com/matthew.adessa NMLSR ID 150138 For more information contact me today! 38 JUNE 2014 I LIC COURIER I www.queenscourier.com real estate Well-established Well-respected Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Don’t let today’s market conditions impact your business. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage provides the security you and your buyers need to help them feel comfortable with their home financing decisions. As your local new construction specialist, I’m committed to serving the needs of home builders and developers, and your buyers. • Dedicated team of new construction specialists available at your models and homes • Quality customer service survey process, helping you control your customers’ experience • A dedicated Project Review Department that provides conventional and HUD condominium project reviews Matthew Adessa Sales Manager New Construction Specialist 35-01C 30th Avenue, Astoria, NY 11103 Phone: 718-310-4303 Cell: 718-809-0353 [email protected] Information is accurate as of date of printing and is subject to change without notice. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2013 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. NMLSR ID 399801. AS986409 Expires 8/2013 as of date of printing and is subject to change of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. 2013 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights 399801. Expires 8/2013 Information is accurate as of date of printing and is subject to change without notice. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2013 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. NMLSR ID 399801. AS986409 Expires 8/2013 Information is accurate as of date of printing and is subject to change without notice. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. © 2014 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. NMLSR ID 399801. AS986409 Expires 8/2014 Driving the other day along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, I saw dozens of delinquent billboards victims of the 2009 law that made more than half of existing outdoor advertising signs illegal in New York City. After a few years of speaking with property owners whose incomes plummeted after leases with outdoor companies were cancelled when their locations were not able to be legalized; as well as hearing what outdoor companies have to say, I have made a number of observations that make the regulatory landscape and business realities of billboard advertising utterly strange and occasionally bizarre. Seeing hundreds of these now dilapidated structures several years later, stripped of the advertising message but still up, poses a number of questions. If they were unsafe, why are they still up hundreds of feet in the air above buildings, sidewalks and roads? If the advertiser’s colorful marketing messages were such eyesores, are the dirty, grey and peeling empty faces 60-feet across really that much more tolerable? Although some spots in New York have clearly been oversaturated with advertising signs, and some giant billboards were indeed unsafe, there is more to the story. And despite a deadline to legalize all outdoor signs, despite high fines imposed on the violators, new billboards are still going up and the rusted relics from the go-go days or rampant outdoor ads days, abandoned by owners who could not afford the fines or simply could not legalize their locations, still stand. How is that possible? The answer is too complicated for this column but one basic explanation can be made. After the dust settled and the initial pushback from the outdoor advertising industry was resisted, what we are with is: less competition, survival of the fittest. Also, significant reduction in supply naturally means increase in prices of outdoor ads in some locations, now that the economy and appetite for advertising has recovered. As in any business cycle and any industry, the big boys and the most creative or resilient players push out the lesser operators via acquisitions or applying legal pressure. Looking at the landscape of the outdoor media industry, you’ll notice that some mid-size players like Vista Media, and most small, few-locations operators have been wiped out, their signs and market share either gone or taken over by those companies that found ways to operate their billboards “legally.” I do not pretend to know all the angles and reasons, or solutions to the outdoor advertising industry’s dilemma. But one thing I do feel strongly about – Why wouldn’t a revenue-conscious mayor like Bloomberg or current leadership in City Hall allow legalization of the hundreds of already in place and structurally safe in exchange for fat licensing charge, accrued penalties and annual registration fees? I can guarantee that in almost every single case of the large, well-placed billboard, the old or new operators would gladly pay them, sending tens of millions into city’s coffers now and into the future. With that much business revenue, a license fee close to that of a taxi medallion, and an ongoing annual registration fee in the tens of thousands would not deter the operators of the best and biggest bulletins. Make it proportionate to the signs’ advertising revenue and you have some real money going to the city. I’d rather see willing and able business owners paying a larger share of the tax and fee revenue. David Dynak is a real estate broker at First Pioneer WARS Properties and an LIC resident. He’s lived in Western Queens since 1993.
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