Cellco, Verizon want new tower in South Heart to improve service

Talk about it

Cellco Partnership and Verizon Wireless have proposed a 269-foot self-support communications tower to improve cellphone service in South Heart and along Interstate 94.

“The purpose of the tower is to provide improved in-building coverage in the town of South Heart as well as coverage along Interstate 94,” said Karen Smith, Verizon Wireless public relations manager for the Great Plains region including Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. “The tower will support our voice and data network, including our new 4G Long Term Evolution high-speed broadband network.”

Smith said Verizon is seeking approval to construct the tower and hopes to have the request heard by the Stark County Commission later this month.

The self-support communications towers is proposed to go up at 122nd Avenue Southwest in South Heart.

The proposed tower is anticipated to include medium intensity dual red and white strobe lighting.

Residents have until early December to file any environmental concerns to Terracon Consultants Inc., Jessica Shortino, 15080 A Circle, Omaha, NE 68144, or they can email their concerns to jeshortino@terr

acon.com.

Shortino, a staff environmental scientist, said the notice that went out to the public about two weeks ago is a requirement from the Federal Communications Commission, but the public rarely provides feedback on projects of this nature.

“Mostly, what we are concerned about is making sure there aren’t any cultural resources in the area of the proposed tower that we might not know about or have any personal knowledge of,” Shortino said. “Sometimes there are also people that just do not want to look at the tower, and we’ll get comments on that, but mostly we’re concerned about locating any environmental and historical resources that might be in the area and we don’t know about.”

As it is now, South Heart Mayor Floyd Hurt said cell service in town is often broken up.

“You can miss a lot of calls, so if it improved communication, that would be good,” he said.

Smith said it is premature to comment on the tower design and construction timeline.

“Each tower’s design is dependent on requirements determined by our engineers to provide the needed service in the area,” she said.

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