PHOENIX — A little extra change never hurts — especially during a recession — and the members of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church agree.
The aging population and the lackluster economy has affected the inner-city church in north-central Phoenix, as it has so many other nonprofits, and when the spiritual center was made an offer from on high, the congregation welcomed it.
Consultants from T-Mobile USA Inc. (DTEGY) approached the church in 2008 and laid out a contract to erect a 55-foot monopole cell tower on the property it would lease to help bolster coverage in a “dark spot” of service the carrier had incurred.
While weekly collections, pledges and a lease to a child-care center on property also help out Our Saviour’s, Garth Andrews, a long-time member of the church and negotiator of the arrangement, said additional revenue is always a good thing.
“We are by no means ready to close the doors,” said Andrews. “But we do watch our pennies pretty closely.”
Andrews spent several meetings through a three-month period hammering out a deal that beats the likes of fundraising auctions and dinner theatre.
T-Mobile ended up backing off the construction for two years before deciding to revisit the arrangement in the spring of 2010. Construction took about a month after the decision to return and the tower went live in late February 2011, with T-Mobile expanding cabinet space for its HSPA upgrade.
“They came back and said, ‘we now have funding, let’s start it over again and get back to the permitting process,’” said Andrews. “This time, they were able to build the tower.”
To keep with fine aesthetics, the tower was converted to resemble a tall palm tree and is situated on the church lawn facing a major thoroughfare at 1212 E. Glendale Ave.
Our Saviour’s isn’t the only church in town to pull profits from telecoms, with others such as La Casa de Cristo Lutheran in north Scottsdale gaining and housing six towers on church grounds through the last dozen years. La Casa de Cristo has significantly more property, and blends in the exposed towers by placing them around the church’s baseball field with floodlights attached.
More often than not, churches like to disguise tower eyesores as steeples, bell towers, cacti and various kinds of trees, complete with woodpecker holes and surrounding foliage.
Money to religious organizations can be channeled to support utilities, staff salaries, repair buildings, fund missions and continue services to the destitute while operators are able to enjoy space on church lands, which are often closer in proximity to residences than commercial properties. The deals are usually seen as win-win, and churches are getting involved locally in Arizona, and nationwide.
“There was a hole here in T-Mobile’s coverage,” said Andrews. “There is not a hole on this property on Verizon’s coverage, for example, or in AT&T’s. They have a hole down the street and they’ve got a tower going up near that church.”
Due to contractual obligations, churches don’t often get to share information about how much they make in leasing towers to wireless providers, but industry contacts through RCR Wireless News suggest that the profits can range around $750 to $1,300 a month per tower, depending on the tower, for such a deal.
The data tsunami taking place in wireless devices places critical demand for fast growth on carriers, which are often keeping their eyes peeled for a way to plug up “dead zones” in coverage. It’s estimated by industry analysts that large churches constitute approximately 10% of property owners that negotiate cell tower leases.
Most nationwide zoning codes stipulate that towers can’t be built in a residential part of town. Placing towers in areas where people live and don’t use landline phones can be tricky, so leasing out to churches, which are usually zoned as residential but generally have more property and access to neighborhoods, can serve an important function. Commercial or industrial areas are also less likely to have open land space to build upon, and there needs to be a 150-foot buffer between the nearest lot line in a residential zoned structure.
“A conditional use permit was required to build anything other than church property,” Andrews said. “T-Mobile … just to make sure, sent circulators out with a petition and more than 50% of the neighborhood said, ‘it’s fine with us.”’
While carriers store information about hidden towers, the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t track disguised towers, nor do cities or the Arizona Corporation Commission, a regulatory agency charged with collecting data on landlines but not wireless builds.
It’s a good bet that churches everywhere would be turned onto the idea of leasing land, but carriers typically only approach those places that are needed to extend service. If approached, churches often don’t know what kind of negotiating power their organizations have, as it’s likely that other options carriers were considering had been exhausted.
“We did look into the going rate,” said Andrews. “It varies on the size of the tower, how many antennas are placed in the tower, so ours was on the lower end of the scale.”
Concessions are often made at the point a carrier is willing to barter with a church, including the look of a tower and amount of a lease, with carriers usually willing to accommodate any worries.
“Anytime I had a concern, (T-Mobile) was on it,” said Andrews. “We had an irrigation problem with them at one point but they sent someone out the same day, so we’ve been happy.”
