The Brookfield Village Board on Feb. 13 voted unanimously to allow Crown Castle, a Delaware-based shared wireless infrastructure provider, to install fiber-optic cabling and radio transmitters along a stretch of Golf Road, near Riverside-Brookfield High School and continuing south toward the Hollywood train station.
The potential deal comes several weeks after neighboring village of Riverside gave the go-ahead for a similar project in December 2016. Brookfield would, according to the proposed 10-year agreement, get 5 percent of annual gross revenue generated from the infrastructure installation, and would not be responsible for upkeep or construction costs.
Riverside agreed to the same terms in its agreement. Crown Castle, which sells access to its infrastructure to telecommunication giants like Verizon and Sprint, has also done work in the Chicago and several suburbs, including Downers Grove.
“We don’t want to leaving anyone hanging or unhappy,” Crown Castle Government Relations Manager Tanya Rosin said at a Jan. 23 Brookfield Board of Trustees meeting. “We want a long-term relationship.”
The Brookfield agreement involves laying cables underground as well as attaching one to about 20 existing utility poles. There will also be antennae and radio transmitters attached near the top of some poles. Brookfield officials estimated the agreement will the net village less than $5,000 a year, which Board President Kit Ketchmark called “negligible.”
Several Brookfield trustees, including Michelle Ryan and Michael Garvey, and Village President Ketchmark peppered Rosin with questions about the equipment size, previous clients and possible disruptions to the community from construction.
“All I’m asking is that it be coordinated as much as possible to avoid inconvenience and safety for the high school purposes and event purposes,” Garvey said of the proposed project.
Construction will not include any road closures, according to Village Manager Keith Sbiral, though documents provided by the village indicated there might be some impact to motorists.
If the agreement is approved, Crown Castle will hire outside contractors to install the equipment and Rosin said construction will last a few weeks.
Rosin declined to offer specific dates for construction but said Crown Castle will begin work as soon as the village permits.
“All work will be done during regular business hours,” Rosin wrote in an email to the Landmark. “And Crown Castle doesn’t anticipate significant noise or traffic disruption.”
“It was important for her and her company to hear our concerns about the final product, in terms of what that’ll look like for our residents,” Kit Ketchmark, village president said in a Feb. 8 phone interview.
The Brookfield project will, according to village documents, involved single traffic lane closures on a portion of Hollywood Avenue. There will also be an antennae placed on the top of an existing pole at the intersection of Hollywood and Brookfield Avenues, raising the total height by about one foot.
The Riverside agreement involves three sites, one from the intersection of First Avenue and Forest Avenue west toward Golf Road. The second is a stretch of Pine Avenue, from East Avenue to West Avenue. The third is at the intersection of Forest Avenue and West Avenue. Installation at all three sites will, according to Riverside construction plans, involve lane closures.
The both agreements are for 10 years and will automatically renew for an additional five years.
Crown Castle declined to comment on how much revenue it expects to generate from the two agreements.
