New Cell Tower Gets Official Approval

After months of review and two bidding phases, the Bernards Township Sewerage Authority officially awarded the rights to build a new 150-foot tall cell tower at the Sewage Treatment Facility on Martinsville Road.

T-Mobile and AT&T submitted bids for the second time for the project, which was rejected by default in March after the Authority did not receive enough bidders per the designed contract to award a cell carrier with the project.

The Authority amended the bidding process to allow an award if of only two carriers made offers and raised the minimum bid from $25,000 to $27,500. T-Mobile was awarded the rights to build the tower and first choice for antenna location with a $31,750 bid – up from $30,030 in March, and AT&T raised their previous offer of $25,000 to meet the new $27,500 minimum bid amount, according to Sewerage Authority Administrator Peter Messina.

Messina said that the project will next go to contract discussions, and once those are completed, T-Mobile will begin work on designing, and eventually constructing, the tower.

"I bet they won't start [construction] until the mid-summer, but [the cell tower] should be up by the fall," Messina said.

The township will then be able to collect annually from the cell carriers using the tower because of its location on township property.

Prior to the resolution awarding T-Mobile with the project, the Authority had discussed a preference to include more carriers on the tower, both for financial reasons and to help limit the need for cell tower proliferation in the township. While only two carriers will be mounted to the tower after its construction, Messina said at past meetings that the possibility exists to attach an additional carrier's antennae on to the tower in the future.