I have a friend that has been contacted by a cell phone carrier to lease part of his property for a cell tower. What is a reasonable rental rate for something like this.

I'm a fire commissioner and we have a radio tower for the department... we are also looking to attract cell companies. Depending on your location, we've heard the amount is in the range of $1500-$2500 per month. You also need to consider whether you're going to provide power as part of the lease.

There are real estate attorneys that can help with this. I would definitely not sign anything without an attorney looking it over. You can lock yourself into a long-term headache if you aren't careful. Be aware that most of these leases will allow sublease of the tower and ground space to other entities and will include access privileges for those subleases. Unless it's right on a public roadway you are going to be asked to provide an easement. Lot's of considerations as to who and how the easement is maintained. You will want to be specific about the improvements including road construction, utilities above or below ground, gates and fencing, etc, etc. Very similar considerations to O&G surface rights issues.

taba82 said:

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I'm a fire commissioner and we have a radio tower for the department... we are also looking to attract cell companies. Depending on your location, we've heard the amount is in the range of $1500-$2500 per month. You also need to consider whether you're going to provide power as part of the lease.

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This is consistent with what I've seen with cell companies (or law enforcement agencies) leasing space on existing broadcast transmission towers.

They need to hire a lawyer with experience. I used to be in the Cell Tower business. They can probably get ~$2000 per month if it's for a single carrier, but the real money comes from having multiple tenants on the tower. Then you can add language that the carriers monthly rate goes up every time they add more equipment to the tower or pad site below it, etc. These leases can become very lucrative depending on the contract language and location. And you want to lock them in long-term (with the specific language regarding rate increases, accelerators, etc.)

The flip side of this is if the site is in the middle of nowhere and there are a bunch of other locations available, then your friend doesn't have much leverage. If in a rural setting the exact location of the tower won't matter as much. But if it's an urban area (the denser the better), they may not have too many options available in order to meet their coverage needs.