Steve Kazella:
Hello, my name is Steve Kazella. I’m one of the partners here at Tower Genius, LLC. We are the USA’s top cell tower lease consultancy. We help property owners and landlords that have cell tower leasing questions, or who need help with their cell tower lease proposals. So, if you’re a cell site landlord, you have a rooftop cell site lease agreement with Verizon Wireless, with Dish Wireless, with AT&T or with T-Mobile, or even with U.S. Cellular, or if you are a cell tower landlord with American Tower Corporation, Crown Castle, or SBA Communications as your tenant we can help you.
And well, if you’ve been a wireless communications landlord for any amount of time, you’ve probably received a number of real estate “love letters” from the wireless industry, because they love your cell tower lease agreement so much. Actually, it’s funny, they signed your telecom lease agreement and it was okay at the time… But oh, well, we’re not so sure about the future viability of your site and how it fits into our network at such a high rent rate. So let’s renegotiate that rental price. Because your cell tower lease rate is actually not really that optimal for us. We need to “optimize” your lease agreement (in our favor — not yours) or we need you to voluntarily participate in our LOP or cell site lease optimization program. (Of course, it’s totally optional, not mandatory. Just remember, if you don’t participate, we can exercise our right to terminate your cell tower lease agreement and then you won’t get paid, and we’ll move the tower across the street.)
To ensure the future viability of our network we need a rent guarantee from you. We’re going to guarantee that your rent will be much lower than it is right now, and in exchange we will guarantee that your cell tower lease will pay you for at least the next five or ten years and they cell tower will still be here.
Hey, ever heard of Enron? I guess they guaranteed a whole bunch of things for a bunch of people, didn’t they? Not!!
So when you get one of these cell tower rent reduction letters, one of these threatening sounding love letters from the wireless industry, what are you supposed to do as a cell tower landlord?
Well, you could just tell them to go piss off and go pound salt. And for a lot of you folks out there, that’s probably the best thing that you can do. Ask them, “Hey, is this a termination letter?” You can actually send them a legal notice to their legal department and say, “Hey, I got this rent reduction letter from one of your wonderful consultants out in San Diego. So we will consider this your termination letter. Is that okay with you T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc..?” Watch how quickly you will get a call back from their legal department. LOL.
I don’t want to name any names, but you ever read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, the black spot of death? Well, there is a black spot in the wireless industry too. Don’t want to mention any names, some other company sounds like Maryland and the number seven. Hey, I don’t know. But these companies are out there, sending out these threatening sounding rent reduction letters. And actually one of the reasons that Kevin Donohue and I got started helping property owners is…. And if I sound a little bit frustrated or upset about this, I’ve got to tell you folks, the reason that Kevin and I got into this side of the business back in 2008 was because when we actually started out, we tried to become a rooftop management company. We were trying to manage rooftop cell sites. And I created a website, ended up getting a ton of contacts from people reaching out saying, “Hey, my mom and dad got this letter. They were terrified. They extended their lease for 90 years. They reduced the rent by 40 or 50%.”
For the most part, these letters were being sent out to the flyover states. So they were sending out to a lot of rural cell tower landlords, a lot of churches got them, a lot of farmers. Just a lot of average everyday cell tower property owners got these threatening letters and they all had the subtle threat of exercising their right to terminate the cell site lease agreement. Some of them weren’t so subtle. Some of them were pretty darn threatening. So if you’ve received one of these offers, don’t allow yourself to be bullied by these companies. If you have a question, please give us a call at Tower Genius at (888) 313-9750. We’re not going to charge you. We actually charge a $29.99 consulting fee for an initial 30-minute discovery call, but if you’ve got one of these lease optimization offer letters or rent reduction term sheets, just tell our call screeners, our receptionist, that you’d like a call back from Kevin or Steve about a rent reduction letter. We will gladly talk to you. We do need to look at your site.
If you have an urban rooftop site in one of the NFL urban rooftop markets, we actually believe that there’s a strong chance in the next five to 10 years, that there could be some changes coming to your site, if you want to talk to us about that. But if you receive one of these cell tower lease optimization letters, one of these rent guarantees or rent reduction letters from a wonderful company out in San Diego, give us a call at (888) 313-9750, because lease optimization only goes this way (downward) for them, it only goes down. Typically, the cellular carriers, especially T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon wireless and especially T-Mobile, these guys are going to fight to reduce your cell site rent. They’re going to send you these lease optimization, rent reduction letters right up to about a year before your cell tower lease expires. Their M.O. is try to reduce your telecom rent, get you to take a significant rent reduction.
Hey, these guys know. These carriers knew what they were getting into when they signed those lease agreements. So… Give us a call at Tower Genius. We’d be glad to talk to you and help you.