Lincolnshire mulls cell tower swap

A 125-foot-high cellular telephone tower could soon come down in Lincolnshire -- but it would be replaced by a 155-foot-high tower nearby.

An Atlanta company, American Tower Inc., has requested the swap. The firm's plan calls for the decommission of an existing tower in a planned downtown commercial district called Lincolnshire Marketplace. The site is east of Milwaukee Avenue near what once was Riverside Drive.

"If we want this development to go forward, this is what we have to do," Trustee David Saltiel said Monday during a committee-of-the-whole discussion of the plan.

The board took no action on the matter Monday. Rather, trustees requested an engineer talk to them about the proposal at their next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 15.

The new tower would be built about 350 feet east of the current site, said Stephen McNellis, the village's community development director.

The proposed, needle-like tower, called a monopole, is more attractive than the current lattice-styled tower, said Mike Howley, a real estate consultant who spoke on behalf of the Lincolnshire Marketplace developers.

Four of the five antennas on the tower would be mounted flush to the structure, officials said. An AT&T antenna would be the only one not built flush to the tower, Howley said, but some trustees questioned whether the exception should be allowed.

American Tower needs the village board's permission to build the new tower as planned because it would exceed Lincolnshire's height restrictions. The village's zoning board unanimously supported the proposal at an Aug. 28 public hearing.