Verizon has begun erecting and assembling its new cell tower in downtown Milton.

The 140-foot tower sits on a concrete pad adjacent to the town’s public works building on Front Street. Construction began earlier in July, and Verizon officials expect work to be completed before the end of this year. 

The tower, intended to improve coverage and reception in Milton, a place notorious for being a dead zone, has been years in the making.

Verizon first proposed building the tower in March 2019, and in December of that year, town council approved a land-lease agreement with the company that would allow it to build on town-owned land.  

Richard Wells, a retired Verizon employee who now lives in Milton, said with the tower and antennas installed, the next order of business is to complete the tower’s main power mechanisms. Once the tower has a power supply, the electronics can be installed, aligned and tested, and then the tower can go hot, he said. 

Despite calls for Verizon to use an existing water tower to improve signal, the company has always maintained that a freestanding tower is the best way to provide improved coverage in the Milton area. Plans for the tower immediately became controversial, with citizens saying a tower would be an eyesore in what the comprehensive plan calls a gateway to the town, and because the tower would reside in a flood zone.

Those concerns led to a lengthy battle over the tower after a special-use permit was granted in March 2021. That permit was appealed by resident Barry Goodinson a month later. Council affirmed the permit in August 2021. 

Preliminary site plans were approved by the planning and zoning commission in November 2021. That approval was also appealed, this time by resident Allan Benson. Town council again ruled in Verizon’s favor. Council approved final site plans for the tower in March 2023. Milton resident Steve Crawford appealed final site-plan approval to Delaware Superior Court in April 2023, and the case was dismissed in January 2024.

Verizon was granted a building permit in September 2024 and began building the concrete pad the tower sits on earlier this summer. 

For Crawford and Benson, the tower going up engendered mixed emotions.

Crawford said, “My Superior Court appeal, and indeed the other two appeals made to the town, was never about not needing the upgraded service the cell tower will provide. It was all about the location being on property that is in the area where the town has the potential for developing an aesthetically pleasing gateway into Milton. The lesson to be learned from this whole episode is that the appeals process needs to be changed and that the citizens need to take notice of decisions made by the town, particularly as it relates to town-owned property.”

Benson, who lives in the area of the tower, described the tower as the folly of former Mayor Ted Kanakos, who signed the land-lease agreement with Verizon, and maintains that other options to improve coverage could and should have been explored.

“Nobody has yet come up with a logical explanation for not allowing Verizon to test the water tower for the antenna site, which would have made the most sense technically and financially,” he said.