Someone I know owns a property with a mono-pole on it owned by American Tower. The landowner has a pretty good lease IMO. They are getting $13,000 lease payments annually that increase 15% every 5 years. The tower is downtown in a populated city and Verizon is the only tenant on it and there is not another cell tower within a mile of this one.
The contract auto-renews every 5 years and coming up on its 2nd auto-renew and American Tower has contacted them wanting to "re-negotiate the lease." They say that the current terms are not "feasible" anymore and that they might look for alternative sites and have made the following offer: • A one-time lump sum payment of $180,265.86 in exchange for a 99-year term easement paid at close in lieu of rental payments OR • $700.00 per month rent commencing 08-01-2020 • 10% 5-year term escalation effective 08-01-2021 and every 5 years thereafter • Providing 6 terms of 5 years each, final expiration date will be 07-31-2071 (current expiration is 7-31-2041) Both those offers are less than what the current lease payments are, the one time buyout will break even in 15-20 years. So what I'm wondering here is American Tower trying to pull their bluff on saying they will "look for alternative sites" ? I don't really see them going through all the hassle to build another site close to this one just to get a $400 cheaper/per month payment. Verizon really needs this site downtown because there are no other towers close to it and the city zoning is so strict that no new towers can be built. Any tips for dealing with the tower owner?
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