Giant video eyed for wall of Garden

The TD Banknorth Garden is seeking city approval to create the biggest advertising space in Boston sports -- a giant video billboard on the north wall of the Garden to show advertisements and promotions for Garden events to drivers entering Boston from the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge on Interstate 93.

Plans call for a 7-foot-tall message strip that would stretch 240 feet across the building, with an 80-foot-wide screen at its centerpiece. It has the ability to play videos, but Garden executives say they plan mostly to use still ads. If approved, the giant billboard will be among the last things drivers north of the city will see before the highway runs underground.

''It's going to be a dramatic display," said Chris Maher, Garden vice president for development.

The size of the billboard, its bright color display, and its proposed spot at a major gateway to downtown Boston would make it a lucrative spot to sell advertising. Garden sales officials already have been making the rounds of companies to assess their interest in putting their names on it, with the goal that the billboard will be up and running by summer.

The proposal has also already generated some concern that the display could prove a dangerous distraction for some drivers.

The billboard is unusual for Boston, but such giant displays have become common elsewhere.

Alex Krieger, a professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, said he would worry if Boston proposed a billboard near the Common.

But the Garden's north wall, he said, is just a dull slab of concrete. Other cities with urban streetscapes, such as New York, with Times Square, and Shanghai in China have used advertisements to infuse a sense of electricity and motion into them, he said.

''It sounds a little shocking, but I think it's great," he said. ''Let them do it."

Video billboards have caught on rapidly in sports arenas because of their ability to alternate between several advertisers -- making more money for the arena -- and because they allow advertisers the flexibility to change their ads whenever they please.

''If you are Coke, all you could do before is put up a billboard that has a Coca-Cola logo," said Ross Yanco, Northeast region manager for Daktronics Inc., a major provider of video display systems. ''Now you can advertise a number of brands throughout the day. Or you could have a different version morning and evening."

The video billboards are expanding rapidly beyond sports as well: Several major metropolitan areas, including Cleveland, Hartford, and New Orleans, already have allowed video displays along highways similar to the one proposed in Boston, Yanco said.

In Boston, Garden executives said they plan mostly static images to avoid distracting drivers and snarling traffic along the highway. They do, however, plan to show some small motion, such as beads of liquid on a Coke bottle or a steaming cup of coffee. But some worried that the sheer size of the display would divert drivers' attention from the road.

''A billboard this big will create traffic problems," said Ivan Sever, Massachusetts coordinator with the National Motorists Association, a drivers' advocacy group. ''I'm sure it's trying to grab people's attention. But if people are driving, they're supposed to be paying attention to that, and not the billboard."

Garden executives have submitted plans for the billboard to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Meredith Baumann, a spokeswoman for the authority, said the plans are ''under review" in the urban design department, but she did not give a timetable for approval. The process for such approval does not call for public hearings, she said.

The plans filed with the city show a long banner that would reach across most of the Garden's gray northside wall. A rectangular screen, resembling a flat-screen television 80 feet wide and 28 feet tall, would connect to the banner. The Budweiser billboard advertisement on the southside of the Garden would come down.

Garden executives said they originally proposed a smaller billboard, but city officials wanted one that was larger. The long banner display also was not in the original plan, Garden officials said.

It will cost the Garden $5 million to put up the billboard. But executives say they will make that back, and more, over the next several years. The Garden plans to use two-thirds of the time for advertisements, with the rest devoted to promotions of the teams, Garden events and public service announcements.

The city would get real estate taxes from the billboard, valued a more than $100,000 a year, Garden officials said.

Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com.