A five-and-a-half-year legal battle over a massive digital billboard proposed for Route 17 in Ridgewood has come to a permanent end. Bergen County Superior Court dismissed Outfront Media's lawsuit against the Ridgewood Zoning Board of Adjustment with prejudice, a ruling that locks in the zoning board's earlier rejection of the sign and bars the company from bringing the same challenge again.
The dismissal closes out a dispute that began back in April 2021, when Outfront Media applied to install a 40-foot-tall, double-sided LED billboard at 500 Route 17 South, according to Daily Voice. The advertising faces were designed to measure roughly 10½ feet tall and nearly 36 feet wide, court documents show — dimensions that village records put more precisely at 10 feet 6 inches by 35 feet 8¼ inches, with each face covering 374.7 square feet for a combined total of 749.4 square feet. Attorney Bruce E. Whitaker confirmed the case's outcome in an Oct. 29 letter stating it was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the lawsuit cannot be refiled on the same claims.
A Proposal the Village Said Was Never Allowed
The underlying problem, according to municipal records, was that the property's zoning designation did not permit a billboard at all. Village filings describe the sign as a prohibited use that would have created a second principal use on the site and required both expansion of an existing nonconforming use and bulk-variance relief. The proposed structure also exceeded the area's 30-foot height limit, meaning Outfront needed variances just to get the project off the ground.
The property sits at Block 4703, Lot 10 in Ridgewood's OB-2 Zone, according to a Village of Ridgewood Zoning Board of Adjustment agenda. That filing formally described Outfront's request as an application for preliminary and final major site-plan approval for a single-pole, double-faced digital multimessage advertising sign. The Zabriskie-Schedler property sits directly across Route 17 from the proposed billboard site, adding another layer of local sensitivity to a project already facing zoning hurdles.
Eleven Hearings, Then a Denial
The zoning board's path to a decision wasn't quick. Board members held 11 public hearings before ultimately voting on July 23, 2024, to deny the application. Neighboring property owners and residents opposed the billboard throughout the process, raising concerns about traffic safety, visibility, and the project's broader impact on the surrounding area.
Outfront tried to address those worries during the hearings. The company argued its narrow-view technology would limit advertisement visibility to highway motorists rather than nearby homes, and it offered landscaping to help shield the sign from adjacent properties. The proposed sign also raised issues involving lighting, nearby buildings and traffic.
The Lawsuit and Its Collapse
None of that was enough to change the board's mind, so Outfront sued the Ridgewood Zoning Board of Adjustment on Jan. 29, 2025. The company accused the board of acting arbitrarily and unreasonably, disregarding expert testimony, and failing to properly weigh the evidence presented in its favor — language echoed in reporting from NJ.com, which described the company's claim that the denial was “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.” Outfront sought to overturn the denial, win approval for the billboard, and secure a building permit to build it.
Ridgewood countered that the sign conflicted with the village's master plan, including its goal of protecting historic-area views from out-of-scale visual intrusions, the outlet reported. Residents who opposed the project told NJ.com they didn't want to see Ridgewood urbanized, worried about what kind of advertisements might appear on the sign, and raised safety concerns for drivers along Route 17. Outfront's engineering, traffic-engineering and land-planning experts pushed back on those worries, contesting the idea that the billboard would distract or disturb residents or drivers.
The case dragged on through 2026, with conferences postponed multiple times. A conference scheduled for Oct. 29 was ultimately canceled that same day — the same date a stipulation of settlement was filed, clearing the way for the court's final dismissal.
Part of a Larger Pattern for Outfront
Ridgewood's fight wasn't an isolated one. Since 2015, Outfront has been involved in 24 lawsuits across New Jersey, including litigation tied to Fort Lee, Ridgefield Park and Red Bank, according to NJ.com's reporting. The Route 17 case adds another entry to that list, though this time ending in a dismissal that bars the company from trying again on the same grounds.
With the lawsuit dismissed with prejudice, the zoning board's original denial stands permanently, according to theridgewoodblog.net. The Ridgewood village manager's office announced the outcome on social media, closing the book on a proposal that had loomed over the Route 17 corridor since the spring of 2021.
