Steelers win appeal on spelling out 'Heinz Field' on lower bowl seats

A Commonwealth Court opinion on Tuesday clears the way for the Pittsburgh Steelers to paint the words “Heinz Field” on the seats in the lower bowl of the stadium.

The issue has been working its way through the city’s zoning board and the courts for more than two years.

Heinz Field, which can hold more than 68,000 people, has seats that are primarily painted yellow and are visible from aerial views above the stadium.

In 2019, the Steelers proposed to paint the seats in the lower bowl to spell out the name of the facility. However, at a hearing before the zoning board in May of that year, the city zoning administrator argued that it would be an inappropriate advertisement visible from above.

In addition, other community members, including Scenic Pittsburgh, objected to the signage and its visibility from areas around the stadium, including Downtown, Mount Washington and the South Side.

Following the hearing, the Pittsburgh Zoning Board ruled that the proposed signage was not permitted under the zoning code.

The Steelers appealed the decision to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, which ruled in their favor in February 2020.

The city appealed to the state Commonwealth Court, which on Tuesday affirmed the lower court decision for the Steelers.

A spokeswoman for the city said that they are reviewing the decision and have not yet decided if they will appeal.

Although the painted seats would be visible from the southern, open end of the stadium and from outside and above, the Commonwealth Court disagreed with the city’s position that it should be considered a prohibited, exterior sign.

“The proposed signage is plainly not an exterior sign; it lies entirely inside the structure,” the court wrote.

It further found that it is not a prohibited roof sign, either, which under the code is any sign “that extends above the roof line or parapet wall.”

Instead, the court found that the proposed seat signage is similar to the Steelers, NFL and University of Pittsburgh logos that are on the turf of Heinz Field. All are visible from an aerial view above the stadium.

Additionally, the appellate court noted in its eight-page opinion that, at Highmark Stadium on the South Side, the word “Hounds” is spelled out in a seating area, and that the zoning board approved that in a 2012 decision calling it an “interior sign.”

“[T]he two cases are essentially analagous in that they both involve stadium seats depicting words that would be obstructed from view when occupied but incidentally visible from the exterior of the respective stadiums,” the Commonwealth Court wrote.

The court said that applicants for zoning relief “should be able to rely on a reasonably consistent application of a zoning ordinance.”