Drilling equipment to arrive soon? We hope so
Drilling equipment to begin construction of the new permanent cell phone tower may show up as early as next week, according to representatives of the Boca Grande Cell Phone Tower Committee. After numerous frustrating delays and red tape, this is definitely good news.
One committee member, Steve Raville, said they had a call earlier this week that has given them some hope.
“There have been a number of delays in the proposed demolition of the bakery, relating to engineering and permitting issues,” he said. “Vertical Bridge has reviewed the situation with the various involved individuals and determined that construction can proceed and need not be delayed by the bakery situation.”
The current construction schedule calls for the stacking of the tower by the end of September. Following completion of the tower, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon will need to install their equipment. Everyone is still anticipating that service will be restored by Thanksgiving.
This schedule is, of course, somewhat weather-dependent and assumes that there won’t be any unanticipated delays.
Raville said that the pace has been stepped up in moving forward with the plan and that there is a “sense of urgency” surrounding those involved.
At least those from the island.
“I’m reasonably confident that this will all come together as planned,” he said. “I think everyone feels that it doesn’t make sense to delay the tower for the bakery process to be sorted out. If it turns out that the tower construction and the bakery demolition need to overlap, Vertical Bridge is willing and able to coordinate with the bakery demolition group to ensure that both projects can proceed safely and successfully.”
