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Delaware and the City of Lewes could reach an agreement to build a 300-foot antenna tower on property owned by the city but located outside city limits.
The Lewes tower is one of a dozen needed to improve the statewide 800 MHz radio system used by fire departments, law enforcement agencies and other emergency responders.
The Lewes Mayor and Council at its Monday, March 19 meeting will consider the state’s proposal to construct the tower on city-owned land adjacent to Savannah Road, in the vicinity of an existing tower owned by Comcast.
The area is also adjacent to the city’s well field, the source of Lewes’ drinking water.
Mayor Jim Ford said the city and state have discussed placing the tower at the proposed location for about six months.
Bryant Baker, program manager with Delaware Department of Technology and Information, said the tower would be part of the second phase of system improvements, known as NextGen.
He said the improvements are aimed at improving communications among first responders if they are inside any of 2,600 buildings statewide that have been identified as “critical buildings” by firefighters.
Baker said the buildings include schools, hospitals, government buildings and “big box” retail stores, where first responders have had communication problems using the radio system.
He said critical buildings are defined by firefighters as those that contain large numbers of people or that present unique firefighting challenges.
Baker said firefighters listed at least two funeral homes as critical buildings. “If you’ve got a lot of people gathering at a funeral home and they need help getting out, that’s a critical building,” he said.
Baker said the first phase of the radio system, built in the mid-1990s, covered about 95 percent of the streets in the state. “That other 5 percent is actually pretty big,” Baker said.
He said three new antenna/towers were added, reducing the coverage gap to two percent. But, Baker said, a fire in downtown Milford a few years ago showed the system still had gaps when firefighters using it had problems communicating.
“This phase will give 100 percent of the state in-street coverage and we’ll also be able to provide 95 percent critical building coverage,” he said.
Baker estimated that building the Lewes tower could cost about $800,000, but he said a more accurate cost wouldn’t be known until Motorola, the system provider, completes a change-order for the project.
Ford said if the proposal were approved, the city would give the tower-site land to the state. He said the trade-off would be that the city – and the area surrounding the city – would benefit from the enhanced emergency communication capabilities of the radio system.
Baker said the state had first considered placing its antennas on the Comcast tower but determined the tower could not handle an additional equipment load.
He said if approved by Lewes and – because of the site’s location in unincorporated Sussex County, approved by the county – tower construction could begin in May and become operational in August.
Lewes to consider antenna tower
Lewes Mayor and Council will meet at 7 p.m., Monday, March 19, in City Hall. Items on the agenda include a proposal by the state of Delaware Department of Technology and Information to approve a memorandum of agreement regarding the installation of a 300-foot tower as part of the state’s digital 800-MHz statewide trunked radio system on a portion of city-owned property at 16612 Kings Highway, which currently includes the Board of Public Works’ well field.
Contact Henry Evans at hevans@capegazette.com
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