A digital billboard at a busy intersection in Middletown Township was dismantled this week following a legal battle over its installation.
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The billboard was operated by Cumberland County-based Premier Media and had been a fixture at the corner of East Lincoln Highway and South Flowers Mill Road near Fred Beans Hyundai of Langhorne and opposite Stars and Stripes Harley-Davidson for three years.
A LevittownNow.com reporter spotted the sign was down on Tuesday afternoon and readers later said it had been taken down over the past day.
Officials for Middletown Township and Premier Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment or to confirm why the billboard was taken down.
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Legal documents reviewed by this news organization revealed that the occupants and owners of the dealership property, McCafferty Hyundai Sales, Inc., which is now part of Fred Beans, along with The Kenneth F. Plunto Family Trust, had challenged the Middletown Township Zoning Hearing Board’s initial approval of the sign.
A Bucks County Court of Common Pleas judge ruling in 2022 allowed the billboard on the property, but the decision was contested by the dealership and trust.
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The county judge’s ruling was appealed to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.
In a late 2023 ruling, Commonwealth Court found the billboard’s installation invalid in the right of way. The decision reversed the lower court’s order.
Premier Media first installed the approximately 300-square-foot, one-sided billboard in early 2021. It was a few feet off the ground with a rock-faced wall base.
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In 2020, the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors had approved a 25-year lease agreement with Premier Media for the small tract of municipal land, generating $1,000 per month during the billboard’s construction phase. The agreement stipulated an annual payment of $19,000 for the first five years, with a 12.5 percent increase every subsequent five years, along with an escrow fund for site landscaping.
At the time, Township Solicitor James Esposito noted that Premier Media had considered alternative locations for the billboard, including a proposal to erect it across the street on property owned by the motorcycle dealership, had the township not granted the lease.
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The billboard was different than the Catalyst Experiential-owned 45-foot-tall “M” and “T” billboard that sits at the corner of Lincoln Highway and Oxford Valley Road in Middletown Township.
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