Two digital billboards are on the horizon for I-5 for Railyards developers
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Council approved two digital billboard leases along I‑5 to fund Railyards redevelopment.
- City tied billboard revenue to projects; leases cancel if Railyards development stalls.
- Union and residents demand billboard income fund affordable housing and tenant relief.
The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday approved two digital billboards along Interstate 5 for developers in the Railyards District, advancing another piece of the civic leaders’ efforts to incentivize construction in the largely vacant area north of downtown.
Staff are expected to return to the City Council for approval for three additional billboards in the district. A map included in meeting documents shows two other potential locations along 5th Street, and another alongside the planned soccer stadium.
Councilmember Mai Vang pulled the item from the consent calendar — where uncontroversial matters are usually listed and passed as a package without discussion — for a separate vote. Vang said she had requested an estimate of the total revenues that the development firm, Downtown Railyard Venture, may expect to gain from the billboards and, “to date I have not received a clear or reliable answer.”
Union opposition
Unite Here Local 49 — the Sacramento-area chapter of the hotel and casino workers’ union — and two Railyards residents called on the city to put the revenues toward affordable housing, and to create a tenant stabilization fund. The union and some Railyards residents have opposed development incentives for the Railyards over the past year, and in July successfully blocked an expansion of a special taxing district intended to repay developers’ spending on infrastructure with anticipated property tax revenues.
At the Tuesday meeting, Unite Here Local 49 President Aamir Deen called the leases “a giant hidden subsidy.” The union said that based on other billboards in Sacramento, the value of 12 potential leases over 34 years could total around $115 million.
Other billboards in the city typically generate upward of $180,000 annually, Marco Gonzalez, senior development project manager, told the City Council. The union based its estimate on an expected $282,000 per billboard annually.
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Revenues needed
City staff said the long-awaited developments in the Railyards — including the new Sacramento Republic FC stadium and the “Central Shops” project, which would convert historic warehouses into restaurants, bars, retail and entertainment — will not move forward without the revenues from the billboard leases. And conversely, the billboard leases will be terminated if the project fails to move ahead.
Developers are expected to invest $325 million during the first phase of redeveloping the central shops, the soccer stadium and all of the associated infrastructure, Gonzalez said.
Mayor Kevin McCarty said he was in full support of the leases.
“But for this project, there would be no value in having billboards in the middle of that open infill development, which has sat fallow for decades,” he said. “This is many, many years in the making. I think it’s a fair compromise.”
The item passed 8-to-1. Vang cast the sole vote in opposition.
This story was originally published January 14, 2026 at 2:11 PM.
