Antagonism is high between wireless carriers and local governments these days as carriers continue to fight with municipalities about zoning ordinances and tower sites.
“Cities really want to deal with wireless if they have a better understanding of what’s required,” said Olan Asbury, managing director of MetroSite Management L.L.C. The small Little Rock, Ark., company is working to bridge the gap between wireless providers and local governments so that carriers can build their sites swiftly and governments can make money.
MetroSite represents municipalities by marketing public property to carriers for wireless facilities. To date, the nine-person company has made inroads in 140 municipalities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Illinois, and has gained endorsements from the municipal leagues in Arkansas and Illinois. MetroSite, a spinoff of a national site acquisition company, also has immediate plans to work with local governments in Indiana, Oklahoma and Missouri.
The year-old company has a 95 percent acceptance rate, as many cities are eager to develop policies to offer their properties and existing assets for antenna sites as a revenue-generating plan, said Asbury. After a municipality retains MetroSite’s services, the company’s first task is to educate city staff and to some extent the community, as to the wireless industry’s needs. MetroSite then identifies municipal sites that could support antenna facilities as well as existing sites that can allow collocation.
After inspecting each site, the company prepares a database for each potential site as well as a city site map locating the properties. Information in the database includes latitude and longitude coordinates, ground elevation, type of site and other site users. Sites are leased on a first-come, first-served basis, and the company encourages collocation, said Asbury. “By dealing with us, carriers have a quicker time to market.
“Every carrier needs a lot of sites within a municipality. What we’re offering are numerous sites from one owner that wants to deal with the carrier and is prepared to deal with the carrier.”
MetroSite is paid on a contingency basis, said Asbury. It negotiates the leases and receives a percentage of the lease fee for the duration of the lease.
“A lot of our work is on the front-end negotiating. We also manage the lease for the full term of the lease. Staying involved has been an extremely marketable situation,” said Asbury. “Carriers are wondering who the landlord will be from day to day. The carrier loses the concern because they know where to send the rent. A contact person changes over and over again at a city.”
Managing the lease also is beneficial to cities because they typically are not accustomed to understanding landlord/tenant relationships, said Asbury. MetroSite is made up of two divisions. One unit develops relationships with municipalities while the other markets the properties to carriers.
“We are developing good relationships with carriers. We are discovering that the work and time to develop a relationship with a city is similar to the amount of time we spend working with carriers. There is a stigma that municipalities don’t want to work with them,” said Asbury.
The issue of confidentiality often shies carriers away from working with cities, he said. Carriers are reluctant to reveal their tower siting plans to government officials, fearing the information may be divulged to the competition through the Freedom of Information Act. Most of the information MetroSite receives is never passed on to the municipality so carriers are more forthcoming, Asbury said.
