The city of Bloomington, MN is heavily averse to new cell phone towers, requiring they be placed on existing structures. As most of the city is residential (with laws forbidding building taller than your neighbors without special dispensation), this presents significant challenges for cell phone providers. Almost every high-rise is festooned with antennas, and still there are substantial coverage gaps. One provider decided to fix this by making an arrangement with a local church: the cell phone company would foot the bill for them to install a new bell tower, which would belong to the church and which the cell company would rent, providing them with a much-needed source of reliable revenue. It went in, it looks great — but the city council called shenanigans, because this was clearly installed to be a cell tower, not a bell tower. The giveaways are the fact that the bells are purely cosmetic and it is a freestanding structure next to the church rather than physically attached. After much grumbling, it was proven to them that this did not actually violate the code, as written, and that furthermore, the city council had approved the building permit. (They just hadn’t paid attention to the details.) The city reluctantly allowed it,but promptly changed the law to make it even more restrictive.

Thus, due to NIMBYs, Bloomington will never have any of these fake tree towers. They are against city code, because no matter how well disguised, the fact is that they are primarily intended as cell towers.

Stupid.

Google maps has a picture of the bell/cell tower under construction. The part at the top has been covered with a brown metal with the church’s stylized cross logo. It actually fits in pretty well, really. I’ve linked it under my name.

Tony- if they designed them all like the one in A2, can you imagine how much our cell bills would go up?

People think these are just thrown up there for giggles. There is a scientific approach to placing them in the areas where coverage and capacity is needed. People want coverage in their house (an area the phones aren’t really designed to get a signal). Communities treat them like trailer parks.

Double edged sword- everyone wants coverage and nobody want to see the infrastructure that provides it. Last time I checked, I pass about 1,000 telephone poles, high tension wires, and street lights everyday. Why aren’t those ’stealth’?

Funny stuff,
Garrett

The reason these exist is that the “real” cellphone towers are suffering from severe NIMBY. The existing ones got placed in undeveloped areas, along highways, etc, etc. (b/c most people would willingly put something 200+ feet tall next to their home - although it actually would pay your mortgage, easily).

Two thing have happened: 1) cellphone use and coverage has increased, requiring more antennas and more towers in more places. 2) The population finally noticed these towers, especially as the population expanded and built new homes in the places that used to be empty (this happens especially in the west and south). They scream bloody murder if you try to put up a new one (which make the existing ones *very* valuable).

So you get a lot of these “stealth” towers. They also show up on (new) high school stadium lights (if the antennas aren’t obvious, look for an extra 5-10 feet cylinder above the lights), inside (new) church bell towers/steeples, just above billboards (usually out of the sightline), or inside the flashing on a new stripmall or the like.

Existing structures are also being used creatively. In cities, they are on the corners of buildings or on the rooftops - again, usually just behind the siteline. Watertanks and (newly) electric company infrastructure are being used.

Yeah, the trees look pretty stupid if you stop and look at them, but they are intended to work like Kristine said - keep them from standing out like a sore thumb. You have to jump through hoops to please the local town committees.

Although, as I found out once I started working in the business, once you know what you are looking for, they are *everywhere*.

Cell phone towers should be designed to look like cell phone towers…or a beautiful version thereof.