Tower Site

A court may have to decide whether the building permit for West Shore Communications' cellular telephone tower in Sykesville was properly issued, but it should be very clear to the company that it is fighting a losing political battle. Rather than continue the increasingly expensive effort to construct this 200-foot tower, West Shore would be better off looking for an alternative site.Construction of the tower began on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 28, almost before the ink was dry on the building permit.

With plans for a 23-story luxury condominium tower in central Columbia all but dead, the property's future remains in limbo after a decision by Maryland's highest court that took almost three years to deliver. Renaissance Centro Columbia LLC, the developer for a mixed-use, retail and 160-unit condominium building at Little Patuxent Parkway and Wincopin Circle, lost its legal bid to keep plans for the tower alive. The decision released Friday, made largely on procedural grounds, means that the company has to start over to pursue the project and would likely face stricter zoning restrictions passed in the intervening years by the County Council.

Carroll County Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown said the commissioners might have found an alternative site for a controversial 200-foot telecommunications tower near Sykesville. But the second closed meeting in two weeks failed to produce a compromise between West Shore Communications Inc. and town officials.Sykesville Mayor Jonathan Herman said that a number of alternatives were discussed in the Monday morning meeting, but he was uncertain whether a deal could be reached."The town is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place," said Mr. Herman, who was to present options to the Town Council in closed session last night.

What is likely the most expensive acre of land in Columbia is up for sale. Asking price for the 1.1-acre grassy site near Columbia's Lakefront, the planned location of a controversial 23-story residential condominium tower, is $4,850,000. The land is listed under a heading of "Columbia Town Center 'WCI tower site'" for sale by brokers Cushman and Wakefield as a prime building site complete with valid building permit good through Dec. 31. "It's Position A. A beautiful site," said salesman Drew White.

No one should be discouraged that Carroll County officials and representatives of West Shore Communications have failed to agree on a new site for the company's proposed telecommunications tower after a couple of meetings. Many more meetings may be required to settle on an alternative to a controversial site on Hollenberry Road, but both sides should persist in their efforts.Sykesville officials and neighbors of the Hollenberry Road site show no signs of abandoning their fight to stop construction of West Shore's 200-foot tower, which began last fall but was halted abruptly.

The fate of the Tower Building site in downtown Baltimore is still up in the air as its owners continue talks with an unidentified bidder who offered more than $2 million for the three-fifths-acre parcel.The site, at Guilford Avenue and Baltimore Street, was the highest-profile property offered in last week's regional commercial real estate auction conducted by Michael Fox Auctioneers of Pikesville and Columbia-based Manekin Corp.The Tower site is one of six properties offered in the June 7 auction where talks between owners and bidders are continuing.

Communications companies dangled an unpleasant alternative before the Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals this week.If the board rejects a proposed 250-foot tower in Crofton, the companies said, they will need more antenna sites -- some perhaps requiring more towers -- to provide the same cellular phone coverage."

Government officials hope that months of debate over an emergency communications tower in Ellicott City - sparked by plans to put it near the historic district - will conclude soon, but they say they're stuck in limbo. State officials who want to build the tower, county administrators who want to use it and preservationists with the Maryland Historical Trust drafted a "memorandum of agreement" last month that outlines ways the state would limit the tower's impact if it were built next to Howard County District Court, several hundred feet from Ellicott City's historic district.

Despite a year of legal haggling and new legislation that prevents construction at its tower site near Sykesville, Cellular One is determined to fight for the proposed location on Hollenberry Road."

The county and the town of Sykesville have filed an appeal of a Circuit Court decision that would allow a cellular telephone tower to be built on Hollenberry Road.They join Kathy Blanco-Losada in the suit, which will be heard in the Court of Special Appeals. Ms. Blanco-Losada lives near the tower site."I am pleased they have joined me," said Ms. Blanco-Losada, who has spent $10,000 to oppose the tower. "We are hoping we have a reply from the court by December."In a ruling issued July 6, Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. said West Shore Communications, contractor for the 200-foot tripod tower, could resume construction.

The dispute continues over the height of a planned 23-story condominium tower in central Columbia after a three-hour meeting failed to produce a compromise, increasing the likelihood that the contentious issue will affect work on the master plan for Town Center redevelopment. "I think everyone gave it a great try, and we weren't able to come to an agreement," said Barbara Lawson, the recently retired director of the Columbia Foundation, who acted as moderator.

NEW YORK -- Eager to avoid creating a fortress that overshadows the World Trade Center memorial, the architects of the Freedom Tower unveiled a new approach yesterday: They would wrap its 187-foot-high, bomb-resistant concrete base in a screen of glass prisms rather than metal panels. This and other refinements were described by the lead architect, David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He spoke at an awards ceremony held by the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 7 World Trade Center, overlooking the Freedom Tower site, which is under excavation.

A power failure at the primary tower used to transmit emergency calls to Carroll County fire companies crippled communications for nearly two hours yesterday morning, county public safety officials said. "Sadly, it boils down to a bank of batteries that failed at a critical location," said Scott Campbell, acting administrator for Carroll's Office of Public Safety and Support Services. It was the first power failure at the hub of an 800-megahertz radio system used by firefighters since it was brought online nearly a decade ago, said Mike Valentine, the public safety office's communications technical assistant.

The last step in securing a site for a tower that would improve the county's emergency radio communications was taken yesterday when the Carroll commissioners voted to buy a necessary easement for the project. The commissioners voted to enter into a $47,200 option to buy the rights to use 7 acres for a road and a "fall zone" around the tower, which will be built on a neighboring 6-acre property owned by Donald J. and Catherine L. Fasca Sr. on Alesia-Lineboro Road. The county signed an option to purchase the Fasca property for $100,000 in May. County officials have searched for a tower site since July 1997, when the county started the 800-megahertz 911 emergency communications system, which uses seven towers to transmit radio messages throughout the county.

NEW YORK - The sudden disappearance of the World Trade Center has made Manhattan's cityscape seem unsteady, like a packed bookshelf missing its southerly bookend. How to right that architectural imbalance - and the psychological one felt by people across the country - is a debate that is already under way, even as rescuers search for the remains of more than 6,000 people in the rubble. Some people say the towers should be defiantly rebuilt, bigger if possible. Others call the area a gravesite and think the entire 16-acre space - among the world's most valuable real estate - should become a memorial.

Leaders of a 4-year-old campaign to build a memorial to Baltimore police officers killed in the line of duty have scaled down their plans and hope to turn around a sluggish fund-raising effort that has seen them spend, in some years, far more than they raised. The memorial - to be built next to the Shot Tower - was scheduled to be completed by spring 1999 at a cost originally estimated at $2.2 million and later as high as $3.5 million. But the board of trustees of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police Memorial Fund Inc. - composed primarily of widows of slain police officers - has switched architects and is now looking at plans for a memorial that would cost less than $1 million.

A power failure at the primary tower used to transmit emergency calls to Carroll County fire companies crippled communications for nearly two hours yesterday morning, county public safety officials said. "Sadly, it boils down to a bank of batteries that failed at a critical location," said Scott Campbell, acting administrator for Carroll's Office of Public Safety and Support Services. It was the first power failure at the hub of an 800-megahertz radio system used by firefighters since it was brought online nearly a decade ago, said Mike Valentine, the public safety office's communications technical assistant.

Nearly two dozen commercial properties, including the site of the old Tower Building downtown, will be auctioned June 7 as a marketing tool used to move distressed properties in other cities makes its Baltimore debut."

Government officials hope that months of debate over an emergency communications tower in Ellicott City - sparked by plans to put it near the historic district - will conclude soon, but they say they're stuck in limbo. State officials who want to build the tower, county administrators who want to use it and preservationists with the Maryland Historical Trust drafted a "memorandum of agreement" last month that outlines ways the state would limit the tower's impact if it were built next to Howard County District Court, several hundred feet from Ellicott City's historic district.

Carroll County public safety officials might have another option for a communications tower in the Lineboro area, where emergency radio signals don't always reach. Howard S. "Buddy" Redman Jr., director of the county Office of Public Safety, said Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. officials approached him last week about putting an antenna on a BGE power line along the Pennsylvania border near Lineboro. "It's apparently one of those real high tower lines on an elevation 900 feet above sea level," Redman said.