Arsht Center wants digital billboards. County mayor approves. Miami mayor does not

Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald on Oct 14, 2026

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MIAMI — When she was on the County Commission, Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins helped lead the fight against jumbo digital billboards downtown. Now she’s leading City Hall and has a high-profile opponent in the ongoing fight over the signs: Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

The two Democrats are longtime allies on politics and policy, sharing a campaign manager in Christian Ulvert and positions on organized labor, environmental conservation, transit funding and the Trump administration.

But on the micro-local issue of whether a performance hall should make millions from a pair of supersized electronic signs, the leaders of Miami and Miami-Dade now find themselves at odds, nearly a year after Higgins won the city mayor’s election with Levine Cava’s endorsement and campaign help.

While Levine Cava joined then-Commissioner Higgins in 2024 to block the Adrienne Arsht Center’s fledgling plan to erect a pair of digital billboards off Interstate 395, now Levine Cava endorses the signs. But Higgins is still against them.

“I haven’t changed my mind one bit,” Higgins told the Miami Herald in a statement. “Light pollution is light pollution.”

In a statement issued through her office, Levine Cava took the other side of the argument: “The Arsht Center is a cultural anchor in our community, and we want to support its continued success. This proposal gives the Arsht another source of revenue to support its programming and operations and helps diversify its funding.”

The Arsht signs represent one of the first major mayor-versus-mayor disputes since Higgins left the County Commission dais, where she was a fairly reliable vote for Levine Cava’s initiatives. The two are also on opposite sides of Miami’s request for a redevelopment district in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, which requires county tax dollars. Higgins is in favor; Levine Cava’s administration is not.

It’s not clear how much of a fight will actually unfold between the two administrations over the Arsht sign proposal, which requires County Commission approval. Because the county owns the Arsht building and because the performance hall functions as an arm of Miami-Dade, it’s the Levine Cava administration making the request for approval through the county’s zoning process, with no apparent need for Miami to weigh in.

The item was briefly scheduled for a County Commission hearing on Oct. 6, but that was scrapped at the last minute for unknown reasons.

If approved, the Arsht Center’s pair of 1,800-square-feet digital signs on Biscayne Boulevard would join the one that started the fight in the first place. The Perez Art Museum Miami built its own 1,800-square-foot sign in 2024, sparking an uproar from local leaders and nearby residents.

PAMM administrators touted the signs as a way to generate dollars for the nonprofit institution with ads while promoting installations inside the museum, too. Backers also pointed out the same part of Miami soon will be illuminated by the light display that is the centerpiece of the state’s “Signature Bridge” project for I-395.

The Arsht push for digital billboards is reviving the battle lines first drawn during the PAMM fight, with opponents of that sign now repeating their arguments.

“A nonprofit is not supposed to be making money off of billboards,” Miami City Commissioner Damian Pardo, the top critic of the PAMM sign and the commissioner representing downtown, told the Herald.

Documents submitted by the county’s Cultural Affairs Department for the Arsht describe a pair of signs standing 120 feet above Biscayne Boulevard that would generate at least $1 million a year for the center in advertising revenue.

An unnamed advertising company would build the signs, which were designed by the Arsht Center’s original architects, Pelli Clarke & Partners. An advertisement couldn’t be on the screen for longer than eight seconds, and the displays would revert to a static logo after midnight each day.

When the Arsht Center first proposed its digital signs, the nonprofit sought approval through the same city of Miami zoning process that approved the sign 800 feet away at the PAMM. That was when Higgins was on the County Commission, representing the downtown Miami neighborhood closest to the new digital billboard. Levine Cava intervened, instructing Arsht administrators that they should ask Miami-Dade for permission for the signs, not the city.

This time around, the Arsht is pursuing permission from the county. The signs would be approved by a County Commission vote as an improvement to a county facility within a county transit zoning district — designations that would leave the city without a say on the signs.

In a statement, Arsht CEO Johann Zietsman called the proposed signs a financial win for the nonprofit, proving the downtown center “a reliable new source of revenue to sustain more than 100 free events and serve approximately 80,000 students each year. And they will also help us promote performances to thousands traveling along I-395.”

James Torres, president of the Downtown Neighbors Alliance neighborhood group, fought the PAMM sign and opposes the Arsht proposal, too. “This is literally becoming Times Square,” he said.