SO CLOSE, BUT YET SO FAR
Two pieces up on new tower … work will begin again next week
(Cover photo by Bob Melvin)
Joe Steele and Luke Boultonhouse have become very acquainted with our regional airports. They are two of the representatives from T Steele Construction, Inc., a telecom construction company out of Rock Island, Illinois, who have been working the new cell phone tower site since its inception. In fact, they were the team who took the last pieces of the old tower down from the Bakery Building.
Earlier this week they worked with another telecom infrastructure team from Mas Tec, a national company out of Coral Gables, to put the first pieces of the new monopole cell phone tower in place.
It was an amazing sight to watch a handful of men wrangle this metal monolith into place as it swung through the air, carried by a crane by nothing but two sets of straps. But these guys do it every day, so to them it’s just another day at the office.
Setting each piece of the tower takes a lot of time, as does getting the tower pieces and equipment over the bridge. While the tower pieces that were delivered did not go over the 40,000-pound weight restriction, the drilling rig weighed in at 144,000 pounds, and the crane was 113,000 pounds.
There is still a third piece of the tower waiting to be stacked and, according to the Boca Grande Cell Tower Committee, it should be set up by next Wednesday. The next two pieces will be coming soon.
With a few minor setbacks taken care of, the installation schedule for the new tower is on track, and the thought now is that it should be fully stacked by the end of the month. The carriers, ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile and our local communications equipment, should all be put into place by Thanksgiving. According to the committee, each carrier must receive its own permit for placement prior to installing their equipment. However, the process might go faster, inasmuch as everything will already be in place and the permits from the carriers are already under review.
