Sprint seeks to build tower at Free State High School

Sprint PCS officials hope to use property at Free State High School to locate a new 120-foot communications tower designed to improve the company’s wireless telephone service in the area.

Sprint PCS recently filed an application with the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning office to build the tower on school district property just northeast of the Free State High baseball field.

Planning commissioners are scheduled to consider the request at their Aug. 28 meeting.

Curtis Holland, an attorney representing Sprint PCS, said company officials chose the site after abandoning plans to build a similar tower on private property about a half mile north of the high school. The company dropped those plans after neighbors in the area complained the tower would be intrusive to the residential area.

Holland said Sprint PCS believed locating the tower on the high school property would alleviate those concerns.

“The good thing about a school property is that even though they are in a residential area, they have so much land that you can put the tower in the middle of the property and still not bother the neighbors,” Holland said. “There will be quite a bit of buffer between the tower and any other properties. It will be several hundred feet.”

Holland said the company also intended to limit the lighting on the tower.

Sprint PCS will pay the school district an annual lease amount to locate the tower on the property, but Holland declined to release the details of the lease. Attempts to contact a school district official for details on the lease were unsuccessful.

The tower would help eliminate gaps in coverage the company has along the Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive corridors, Holland said. It also will help the company keep up with the city’s north and westward expansion.

In addition to receiving planning commission approval, Lawrence city commissioners also will have to approve the project.