If you’ve ever driven up and down Abrams Road and lost your cell phone signal, you’ll understand why T-Mobile is working with St. Thomas Aquinas church and school at Abrams & Kenwood to boost its cell range by building a 75-foot-tall cell tower between the school’s existing football field and parking lot.

According to neighborhood resident Robert Baldwin, a planning consultant and St. Thomas parishioner who’s handling the request on behalf of T-Mobile, both the cell phone company and the church are working to ensure that the tower they’re seeking approval for won’t be a neighborhood eyesore — you can judge for yourself by looking here at a series of photos/photo illustrations Baldwin sent us.

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Baldwin said the initial plans were to build a bell-tower-like structure to better blend into the surroundings, but the designs just didn’t look right. Instead, T-Mobile hopes to use a "stealth" tower (so named because it doesn’t have the big multi-antenna-panel array on the top like so many you see); this one looks more like a giant pole with nothing on top, hence the name "stealth".

The tentative hearing date for the requested Special Use Permit being requested by St. Thomas has been scheduled for June 12; a change in zoning is required because a 75-foot tower isn’t allowed under existing zoning for the site. Contact city development official Jennifer Hiromoto at 214-670-3917, or contact Baldwin at 214-824-7949 or by email at rob@baldwinplanning.com.