Manvel council directs staff to negotiate builder-direction sign plazas after presentation from National Sign Plazas

Manvel’s City Council instructed staff to begin negotiations with National Sign Plazas (NSP) after a detailed presentation about a turnkey home-builder directional sign program intended to replace illegal weekend or “bandit” signs.

Dustin, NSP’s public-sector outreach representative, told the council the program centralizes and standardizes builder wayfinding on city-approved plazas that hold multiple leased panels for builders, while giving the city one panel on each plaza for civic wayfinding or branding. He said NSP funds fabrication, installation, maintenance and removal during buildout, conducts builder outreach in most cases, and provides quarterly remittances to participating jurisdictions. “Simply put, the program eliminates rogue signs if put in the rights-of-way by home builders while simultaneously enhancing community identity and generating revenue for the city,” Dustin said.

Staff and NSP described an initial rollout of roughly 15–20 plazas with four to six builder panels each, and a typical initial fabrication timeline of weeks once designs and placement maps are approved. Dustin told council NSP has remitted more than $2.5 million back to other cities over the last five years but cautioned remittance totals vary and are not a substitute for core city revenues.

Council members focused questions on implementation details: who will handle builder outreach (NSP said it handles outreach but the city can host community meetings), whether NSP will help remove illegal signs (NSP said plaza maintenance agreements commonly cover removal near plazas), how civic panels would be allocated (staff said about one civic panel per plaza is typical), lighting (NSP typically does not light panels but could if council wants), and what ordinance language would be needed to allow plazas in rights-of-way.

City Manager Dan said staff already met with NSP at the staff level and wants to ensure the program aligns with council’s vision. After questions and brief discussion the council signaled broad support for staff to negotiate a draft operating agreement and ordinance language for the plazas, and asked staff to return with the proposed contract, sample ordinance text and a placement map for council review.

Next steps: staff will negotiate terms with NSP, bring a draft agreement and sample ordinance language to the city manager for distribution to council, and return with a proposed placement map and financial schedule for council consideration.