John Weiss/Landmarks Preservation Commission (left); David W. Dunlap/The New York Times

Some outdoor advertising companies regard municipal fines for illegal signs as just another cost of doing business. New York City is suggesting they think again. The cost has now reached six figures.

Building Blocks How the city looks and feels — and why it got that way.

On Friday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Law Department announced that the city had collected $225,000, a record fine, for the illegal installation of wall signs in a historic district without permission from the landmarks agency.

The payment settled a lawsuit that the city filed last year against a sign company, Colossal Media Group, and the owners of 598 Broadway, a 12-story building with temptingly large blank walls overlooking busy Houston Street, in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District.

“This should be a message to companies that flagrantly disregard the city’s landmarks law,” Melanie V. Sadok, assistant corporation counsel in the Law Department, was quoted as saying in the announcement. “We will pursue violators, and, as this case shows, the outcome can be quite costly for them.”

Through three executives — Adrian Moeller, Paul Lindahl and Jonathan Airis — Colossal also agreed to “file complete applications, including color samples, to come into compliance with the landmarks law” for signs at 343 Canal Street, 438 Broome Street, 59 Grand Street and 60 Grand Street.

Robert B. Tierney, the commission chairman, was quoted in the announcement as saying, “For nearly seven years, the defendants ignored the law, and installed more than 20 signs on the wall of a landmarked building without getting permits from the commission, even though they were well aware of the need to obtain them.” The city identified the building’s owners as Zvi Mosery and Nat Mosery.

John Weiss/Landmarks Preservation Commission

David H. Singer, a lawyer for the owners of 598 Broadway, said in a telephone interview: “My clients didn’t put up any signs. My clients leased the side of the building. The signs were supposed to be put up legally.” Mr. Singer added that sign prohibitions, by “drying up a great source of income for landlords,” would compel building owners to raise rents instead.

A telephone message left with a lawyer for Colossal was not returned. A clause in the settlement notes that it “does not and shall not constitute an admission of liability by defendants.”

The signs on the exposed wall at 598 Broadway are now gone. But there is still plenty of outdoor advertising around it. A vinyl wall sign and a free-standing billboard between Lafayette and Crosby Streets already existed in 2010, when that block was added to the historic district, said Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the landmarks commission. They were therefore “grandfathered” in.

There are also hand-painted signs for the Hollister clothing store chain on the side of a six-story building at 600 Broadway, just below the signs that have been removed. Ms. de Bourbon explained the distinction in an e-mail: “It’s mostly text, not images; the color palette is restrained/limited; the colors are in keeping with the painted wall signs historically found in the district; it does not overwhelm the facade or streetscape; has a border, and, most importantly the owner got a permit.”

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times