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SSIR communications tower construction to begin late August, early September

By Staff | Apr 16, 2009

David Felton of Sunshine Towers, Inc. addressed the Captiva Community Panel in an effort to win the Panel’s support regarding the new communications tower to be constructed on the grounds of South Seas Island Resort beginning as early as late August.

The communications tower will replace the existing guyed tower already on South Seas property.

“Right now, we’re shooting for end of August/beginning of September to be under construction. The last public hearing that’s coming up is scheduled for June 11 and after that we still have a few environmental things to go through,” Felton said.

The tower would take approximately 60 to 90 days to complete.

“We’re still planning on the 170 foot monopole and we are working with Lee County Public Safety. They have reserved the top 155 to 170 feet of the tower for their radio equipment,” Felton explained.

In addition to the communication tower, a radio equipment room – which houses all the radio equipment that will operate the antenna on the tower – will be built.

The radio equipment room has proved somewhat challenging for Felton because of the changes FEMA made to flood plane regulations last year.

“In the event of a storm, this is going to be a self-contained system and we don’t want it to get flooded, we want it to be operational during and after a storms that may come through,” Felton said. “We have an elevated equipment pad, we’re expanding this over one of the existing maintenance buildings. It gets us above the flood plane with all of our equipment and utilities and makes this set up so that, in the event of a catastrophe the carriers will have back-up generators.”

Felton also said there are currently three carriers so far who have expressed interest in adding their service to the tower: Verizon, AT&T and Sprint-Nextel.

The panel unanimously offered their support for the project.