Municipal Cell Phone Tower and Cell Site Lease Buyouts

Many municipalities and public entities (housing authorities, parks, utilities) currently maintaining numerous cell phone tower leases or water tower cell site leases have been approached by Unison Site Management, Global Signal, Crown Castle and/or Wireless Capital Partners to sell. For some municipalities, these offers represent an opportunity to get a quick and potentially sizeable infusion of cash without having to issue bonds or increase the tax rate. Some municipalities or municipal governments have sold the rights to the lease income without a full understanding of what they are actually selling.

While Steel in the Air understands that the capitalization of the cell phone tower or water tower cell site leases can be attractive to municipalities who are looking to improve their budgets, we can't recommend that municipalities sell these leases blindly. Nor can we recommend that a municipality consider the sale of their wireless assets without considering ALL of the options.

Steel in the Air provides specific consulting services to municipalities who are considering selling their wireless assets. These services include:

• Evaluation of the cell site lease purchase offer(s) and a comparison to what other private and public landowners have received in the past from Unison Site Management, Wireless Capital Partners or Global Signal.
• Discussion of arrangements for the purchase of actual cell phone tower lease or water tower cell site leases and analysis of what the municipality is actually giving up.
• Review of the expected longevity of the cell phone tower leases or cell site leases including specific assessment of the threat of termination of Sprint/Nextel cell site leases or Cingular/AT&T Wireless cell site leases due to merger consolidation and duplication.
• Evaluation of Future Income Potential that the municipality might be giving up by selling its cell site leases.
• Discussion of other options which might be available to the municipality that could yield 25% -50% more than what Unison or Wireless Capital typically offer.
  
• Counsel and confirmation from an expert on these types of deals so that the decision makers for the municipality or public entity can be rest assured that they have represented their constituents to the best of their ability.
• Solicitation of other offers from other vendors and sources if appropriate.

We are familiar with the various requirements that public entities have regarding public bidding and provide completely confidential consulting services within the confines of your situation. Our consultations are typically offered on an hourly consulting basis with Not to Exceed pricing. The scope is tailored to the number of leases the municipality is considering selling. We normally do not have to visit the subject area to ascertain value of the cell site leases.

More importantly, we have references from past public entity clients we are happy to share with you at your request.

Please contact us for a free estimate of what a review will cost.

Steel in the Air is not affiliated with Unison Site Management, Wireless Capital Partners, Global Signal, Crown Castle, Nextel, Sprint, AT&T Wireless, or Cingular. We simply offer consulting services regarding their cell site lease purchase offers and cell site leases.