North Cook News

The village of Roselle considered a potential lease agreement of village property to AT&T for their cell tower usage. At their April 24th board meeting, village officials from Roselle heard a discussion from village administrator Jason Bielawski on a potential agreement with AT&T.

AT&T was interested in installing one of their cell towers on top of the water tower located at the Roselle Metra Train Station in Roselle. The village staff had collected information on what the partnership might look like and wanted to see if the board was interested, not interested or needed more information before making any decisions.

"So, we're seeking the direction right now" Village Manager Jason Bielawski said. "The water tower at the metro train station does not have any wireless communication equipment on it. AT&T approached the village and presented us with a lot of documents. And I have, and staff have, only really been in conversations with them around kind of the primary economic terms of it and wanted to now have a touch point with the board to even see if it's something you're interested in doing. We did negotiate them up pretty substantially on the monthly rent at least."

The village does have one other lease for a cell tower, providing a lease to T-Mobile for similar equipment at the water tower located on Gary Ave south of Central Ave. This lease is $4000 a month and increases by 3% each year under the terms of their agreement. Bielawski shared that AT&T was interested in a five-year lease which would automatically renew each five-year term unless one of the parties steps in.

Bielawski also shared that AT&T was “willing or have agreed to provide a one-time maintenance payment of $12,000, which is in lieu of reinstalling the existing bicycle racks and shelter,” as they would replace the current location of the bike rack with their generator equipment. This was amenable to the village as “having racks closer to the train station may be more desirable. Certainly getting them closer to video surveillance is desirable by police department.”

The cell tower would be for improved 5G service for AT&T and associated users. It would hopefully eliminate some of the dead zones in town that residents experience. The board was in favor of negotiating this agreement with AT&T and encouraged Bielawski to increase the yearly rate increase, which AT&T had proposed at 1% to somewhere between 2-3% at least. The board did give their approval to move ahead with negotiations as they are interested in the partnership. Any construction or changes would happen in the spring or summer of 2024.