New large tourism signage coming to downtown Fort Smith

Discover Fort Smith, the city’s tourism agency, will soon have an almost 60-foot tall LED (light-emitting diode) sign on the downtown Fort Smith building that houses its offices. The sign will replace the “Area Agency on Aging” sign that now hangs from the structure.

The original signage was installed in the 1960s, according to Storm Nolan with Nextgen Development Partners, the company that acquired and renovated the seven-story building. The signage has been in disrepair for many years.

Discover Fort Smith, also known as the Fort Smith Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB), moved in 2024 out of the Miss Laura’s building to the new offices on Garrison Avenue. Discover Fort Smith Executive Director Ashleigh Bachert said the idea for a new sign is part of an effort to “bring attention to the fact that we’re here” in the building, and to promote events in the city.

Creating and installing the sign will cost around $110,000, with installation estimated to be complete by late March, Bachert said. She said people in downtown Fort Smith could in the next few weeks see a large crane lifting sections of the digital components into a new steel structure. The sign will be 59-feet tall and 3.28-feet wide.

“I love that it’s basically going to be a big digital billboard and three-sided,” Bachert said. “It really made sense because we can highlight things, rotate it out, and make this a lot of fun.”

For example, Bachert said, if the signage were up now they would use it to promote the Great American Conference basketball tournament that will be in Fort Smith on March 4-8. The event is estimated to have 1,300 attendees, with about 500 staying overnight. But the most likely event to first be promoted with the new signage is the Steel Horse Rally, a motorcycle event that draws tens of thousands to downtown Fort Smith and the region. The event, first held in 2015, is set for May 1-2.

Bachert said they were able to reduce the overall cost for the sign by using open-source software to manage the messaging instead of relying on costly proprietary software.

“We can scroll it. We can add animation. We can manage it,” she said. “We think the ability to promote events in Fort Smith is going to be really handy for the CVB, and make people more aware of what is going on in our community.”

Bachert said the billboard will be limited to promoting tourism events and community messages, such as congratulating a school that wins a state championship. She said they have a policy in place to regulate what they can and cannot display.

Nolan said because the CVB did not invest in a lot of signage when moving to the downtown office, the agency was able to afford the unique signage. He and Bachert stressed that the signage will be dimmable so that it will not be a distraction at night.

“This will not be an eyesore,” Nolan said.

The CVB has seven full-time and two part-time employees. The agency, funded through a 3% lodging tax, is tasked to promote the city as a tourism destination, which includes recruiting conventions, conferences, and sporting events.