Lamar seeks to raise I-10 billboard to 80 feet

Although staff members at the city-parish Planning Commission say it flies in the face of the Unified Development Code, Lamar Advertising Co. wants to raise a 50-foot-high billboard facing Interstate 10 by an additional 30 feet. The parish attorney’s office is requesting a waiver for Lamar to raise its sign at Nairn Drive—on the south side of the interstate between Acadian Thruway and College Boulevard—as part of a conditional settlement agreement that goes back nearly 10 years. In 2003 the city-parish expropriated five of Lamar’s billboards to widen Interstate 10 and construct the Picardy Avenue interchange. Robert Wilfert, a Lamar real estate manager, says those signs were Lamar’s premium advertising billboards in the Capital Region. The city-parish settled for nearly $1.7 million. “The value of those signs has been the subject of litigation since the expropriation,” city-parish attorney Leo D’Aubin writes to the Planning Commission in a letter seeking a waiver for the elevation of the Nairn Drive sign. The city-parish paid Lamar an additional $162,500 in a recently mediated settlement agreement, which includes raising the Nairn sign. “At least half the sign is blocked by the sound barrier,” Wilfert says. The Planning Commission board will review the waiver request on Jan. 22. —Adam Pearson