Members of the Farmville Town Council voted to approve a ground and water tank lease agreement with Precision Cell, LLC for cell service at the water tower at Andrews Drive off South Main Street during its work session May 2.

Robert McAvoy, president of Precision Cell, LLC said Friday that the antennas that provide cell service will be placed on the water tower.

The 150-foot close-mount monopole communications structure, originally proposed to be installed in the area of 718 Griffin Blvd. by Precision Cell, LLC, was met with community opposition, including a letter from Longwood University’s Associate Vice President of Campus Planning, Construction and Real Estate Foundation Louise W. Waller.

“The list goes on and on,” Speaker Perry Carrington said after citing a list of concerns about the effects the tower could have on health during the January Town Council meeting. “I know that in 2018 there is a need for cell towers. I guess just about everybody here has a cellphone, but I don’t think we want one in our backyard.”

“The Longwood University Master Plan 2025, ‘Place Matters,’ developed after substantial consultation within the university and across the wider community, reimagines the vast southern campus space and connects it more strongly to the central campus and community,” Waller noted in the letter. “An attractive and welcoming residential campus is essential to our mission and to attracting and retaining students, and the proposed cell tower would be visually and physically very much at odds with that plan.”

McAvoy, who attended the May 2 meeting, spoke briefly prior to the board’s decision to move the cell service to the water tower at Andrews Drive.

“I’ve been working with both Sprint and Verizon with communication indicating that we’re moving the site from the original location on Griffin Boulevard to the water tower and they seem satisfied,” McAvoy said. 

The motion to approve the lease passed unanimously.