Leasing roof space/excess space

Does anyone have experience leasing roof space to cell companies for towers, or other revenue generating schemes?

Curious as to how the process works, what the process looks like, and how to assess feasibility.

Cell towers are just an idea, anything else is cool too

11 Comments
 

I managed a building with cell towers on top. They came to us, told us they wanted to put cell towers on our flat roof and paid us something like $4,000 a month. You sign an agreement and cash checks, more or less.

Misc. Income for the win

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Directly through the telecom. Most have real estate teams.

The only restrictions on the property were access (we provided the telecom company a fob and a key to the roof) and them telling us "you don't want your maintenance man standing in front of these for too long."

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

We did the same thing and they approached us every time. They will do all the feasibility and provide engineered drawings, they'll even build enclosures that match your building facade at their expense to mask the tower. You just have to sign off on each step of what they propose.

We also did some solar stuff but I honestly have no idea how that works or gets set up.

Another random way (not necessarily on the roof) we started making money was charging telecom companies an up front fee just to be on our property or to reconfigure existing service. Like Verizon wants to come in and install fios facilities in order to provide capacity to service all of your tenants, OK that's cool pay us $5K and sign this agreement that says you can't fuck any of our shit up while youre doing the work. They'll pay it.

 

Definitely nice misc income, but it can be a nightmare if you want to redevelop--or if a potential buyer wants to redevelop--and you haven't considered the consequences of your cell tower lease obligations. We've made sure that all of our cell tower leases give us an out for redevelopment or major renovation.

Array
 

One thing I forgot is that they also required a tech room in the basement. Something like 500 SF. Part of the $4000 was for that.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 
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Array

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