Ames, IA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Ames Municipal Code Sec. 29.1319(10) defines Digital Displays as billboards with programmable displays and internal LED illumination and confines them to a narrow lane: they are only permitted along U.S. Highway 30, on property zoned Highway-Oriented Commercial (HOC), General Industrial (GI) or Planned Industrial (PI) that abuts the highway, and no existing billboard may simply be converted into one. Before a Digital Display support structure can go up, the applicant must remove at least two existing nonconforming billboard support structures and their sign faces, and remove at least 400 square feet of message area for each new digital face, with no partial credit carried over to a future application.

Removal credit requires that the taken-down billboard was under an advertising lease, came down within six months of the new application, and was not relocated within 1,000 feet of its old spot; the Planning Director can instead condition approval on removal before the new permit issues, with up to one six-month extension. New Digital Displays are capped at 672 square feet per face, limited to two faces per structure (one per direction), must sit at least 1,000 feet from any other billboard, and cannot animate or simulate animation between message changes.

Newly constructed Digital Displays are approved by the Planning and Housing Director through a Minor Site Development Plan, and, unlike standard billboards, are not subject to the general billboard lighting curfew.