Water tower antennae space worth $1M

The Fredonia Village Board is considering a buyout of cell signal transmitter space atop its water tower off Industrial Drive.

The offer from TowerPoint Acquisitions would give the village a $1 million lump-sum payment for a 99-year lease to the space currently rented annually by Verizon and T-Mobile. It was discussed in a closed session at a village board meeting last week.

“It would still be our water tower but they would be purchasing a lease on the top of the tower,” Village Administrator Christophe Jenkins said.

The village has signed a memorandum of understanding with TowerPoint and now needs to negotiate a legal agreement for granting an easement to the top of the tower, Jenkins said.

He acknowledged that water tower buyout offers can be viewed as risky because the village loses a measure of autonomy when agreeing to them, however, he plans to work protections for the village into the agreement.

The villages of Kewaskum and Oostburg accepted buyout offers from TowerPoint for their water towers and had protections built into their contracts, he said.

TowerPoint would take over a $2,728 annual lease from Verizon and a $24,011 annual lease from T-Mobile. Both leases have annual escalator rates of 3%.

Any rent from new tenants would be split between TowerPoint and the village.

If the village agrees to the buyout, it is essentially hedging against the possibility that cell signal transmitter technology will become obsolete in the near future.

“We are getting paid for the next 30 years of rental upfront,” Jenkins said.  “We don’t know the length of this technology. It could be around 10 years or 100 years. They are betting the technology will continue.”