New tower now up in Buffalo Grove

A crew from Tower Works Inc. of Maple Park installed a 125-foot communications tower Monday at Buffalo Grove Village Hall, replacing one mounted on the roof of the hall that collapsed in heavy winds March 9.

Putting up the tower itself only took about four hours, said crew foreman Paul Aubert of Elk Grove Village, but it is mounted on a new concrete base that is 8 feet in diameter and 27.5 feet deep.

The old tower had been on the roof for more than 30 years and was loaded with equipment that had been added over time. Lag bolts mounted in the roof ripped out in the high winds, said Aubert, who also worked on cutting up and removing that tower.

The collapse disrupted the village's communications network, which it shares with the park district and Aptakisic-Tripp School District 102. A temporary structure was established, but Robert Giddens, the village's director of information technology, said the network ran 25 times slower as a result.

The village incorporated the new tower into a plan already underway to build an 80-foot tower on the north side of village hall for the emergency operations center.