The billboard “would provide additional exposure and marketing opportunities for the Dutch Lions and for the city,” according to a memo from West Carrollton Planning Director Greg Gaines.
It would be built on an 8.13-acre site owned by Appvion Inc. about 2,000 feet south of Alex Bell Road adjacent to the interstate, according to city documents.
The gateway billboard would be 50 feet to the top of the digital display panel and include two back-to-back 14 feet high by 48 feet wide display panels, documents show.
“We are trying to do a first-class installation that would complement what the city has in its comprehensive plan,” said Nick Keyes Jr., vice president of the company that has constructed similar billboards in past two years in Beaverceek and Huber Heights. “We’re not just sticking in a random board. We wanted to fit into the community and to be an asset.”
Keyes said the design of the billboard would be similar to the city’s signs constructed this year off of I-75’s Exit 47. He called the plan “a collaborative community effort” from which the Dutch Lions and the city benefit by sharing space on the structure.
“This is something that the city of West Carrollton is going to have community messages on,” he said. “They’re going to be able to use this to promote the city. They’re going to be able to use it as an economic driver.”
Keyes declined to disclose how much the billboard would cost to construct, but noted that it does comply with the city’s zoning code. Key-Ads has received approval from the Ohio Department of Transportation to build the billboard on the Appvion land, according to the city.
Both Key-Ads and the Dutch Lions wanted to construct it on the other side of the highway on high school property. However, the Federal Highway Beautification Act and the Ohio Revised Code do not permit it, city records show.
The billboard plan was scheduled to be discussed in a work session Tuesday night involving the West Carrollton City Council and the city’s planning commission.
Pending city approval and other variables, construction on the billboard should be complete in January 2015, if not sooner, said Tony Cockerham, vice president of operations for the Dutch Lions.
Earlier this year, the Dutch Lions agreed to a deal to call Dayton Outpatient Center Field at West Carrollton High School their home field, giving the soccer organization its practice fields, home field and youth academy in the city where its office is located.
Discussions with Key-Ads on the billboard began in November 2013 as part of the Dutch Lions “overall vision,” Cockerham said.
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