Lacey, WA Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Section 16.75.080(A)(10) of the Lacey Municipal Code sets the standards for freeway-oriented signs in the City of Lacey, and the size table for ordinary freestanding signs in (A)(6) expressly excludes them. To qualify, a shopping center or commercial complex needs a minimum of one thousand one hundred feet of frontage along a freeway. A frontage road or other right-of-way between the site and the freeway does not disqualify it. The center must also be a commercial subdivision or subject to a binding site plan, be more than thirty acres, and have more than three hundred fifty thousand square feet of gross floor area of buildings.

A qualifying center can place one sign for every one thousand one hundred feet of freeway frontage, up to three. Height is capped at thirty feet from the roadway curb elevation or development natural grade, whichever is higher, area at three hundred square feet, and the sign must sit at least twenty feet from all property lines and rights-of-way. These signs can be in addition to non-freeway-oriented signs identifying businesses, and must be fully enclosed with no exposed conduits or switchgear, with transformers landscaped from public view.

Departures from size and height are considered under § 16.75.040(C) only if the sign has a distinctive one-of-a-kind design that complements the center's buildings, uses an opaque or dark background with light-colored lettering, and is no taller than physically necessary to be clearly visible from Interstate 5 traffic, using view corridors and gaps in the tree canopy. Under § 16.75.080(A)(9), a freeway-oriented sign that gives reasonable identification from all adjacent arterial frontages counts as the shopping center sign. The clutter table in (A)(8) allows ten items of information for the freeway speed row at every sign area bracket.