A proposal floated May 21 to put ads for Lowe’s home-improvement chain in Minneapolis parks passed the full park board Wednesday, despite commissioners’ stated misgivings about the signs. The two banners, along with 12-by-17 inch indoor signs at other parks, are part of a deal in which Lowe’s promises to provide certain city parks with as much as $90,000 worth of equipment and labor.

After confessing to having had nightmares about advertising banners hanging from trees in parks, Commissioner Tracy Nordstrom said she was relieved that’s not how the Lowe’s banners will be displayed. The banner ads (pictured, click for larger view) at Loring Park and Parade Ice Garden will be reduced from an original size of 8-by-2 feet to 6-by-2 feet, staff said, and would hang from buildings in positions judged to be least conspicuous: over the main entrance to the ice rink and on a side of a new Lowe’s-supplied shed at Loring facing away from neighbors and park users.

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Commissioner Jon Olson had earlier expressed regret that Lowe’s (via its marketing consultant, GMR) had targeted donations for parks only in particular ZIP codes, with nothing going to parks in the north, northeast or southeast sections of the city. But on Wednesday, Olson said he was satisfied that Lowe’s would target other ZIP codes next year. Olson also emphasized that the ads will be on view for a “short amount of time.”

The indoor signs will hang in kitchen areas near donated appliances for one year and will not include proposed language directing park visitors to look for similar merchandise at the Lowe’s Web site. The outdoor banners will go up as early as July and remain through December, unless they become damaged, in which case they won’t be replaced.

But the original wording on the banner ads — “This area brought to you in part by Lowe’s” — may not change, despite drawing sharp criticism from commissioners at their May 21 meeting.  Vice President (and former superintendent) Mary Merrill Anderson asked staff to repeat what she thought she’d heard: that the banner slogan “would remain the same or” would change. Still, Merrill Anderson voted in favor of the ad plan, despite her stated fear that accepting ads in parks “can be a slippery slope until we set some guidelines.” Commissioner Annie Young, saying “It’s still a big banner,” cast the only vote against.

The park commissioners don’t have a policy on ads in parks but say they plan to craft one. Besides taxpayer support, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has long received donations of goods and services from corporations and individuals without swapping for ad space or similar sponsorship benefits. A recent deal with Toyota (which came via St. Paul’s parks department) broke with that tradition, and another deal with Traveler’s could happen by year’s end.