Champaign, IL Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Sec. 37-437(d) of the Champaign Code of Ordinances singles out interstate highway-oriented signs as a distinct category within the Commercial General (CG) district's sign rules. To qualify for the larger sign, a business must satisfy four threshold conditions: the lot must have a minimum of 150 feet of frontage along I-74 or a parallel frontage road; the lot must be located within 300 feet of the interstate centerline; the lot must be zoned CG; and the business cannot already have any other freestanding sign on that interstate or frontage-road frontage.

Once qualified, the sign itself is capped at 150 square feet in area and 50 feet in height, dramatically larger than a standard CG freestanding sign. Spacing rules keep the highway signs from clustering: each interstate-oriented sign must sit at least 150 feet from any other interstate-oriented sign along the same frontage, and at least 50 feet from any standard freestanding sign on that frontage. Like other freestanding signs citywide, the highway sign must also be set back 5 feet from the property line. Sec.

37-437(a) confirms these interstate-oriented signs are carved out of the standard on-premises business sign table (Table VIII-B) precisely because subsection (d) governs them separately, and Sec. 37-439's parallel industrial-district provisions borrow the CG standards but do not extend this interstate-sign carve-out to the I-1, I-2, CI, and IBP districts.