Christian Retreat tower answers the call

Construction fencing surrounds a circular concrete slab on a grassy patch near the center of Christian Retreat’s 110-acre campus.

It doesn’t look like much now, but in 30 days, it will become a new focal point for the Upper Manatee River Road church campus, a cellular communications tower disguised as a cross.

“Everybody’s thrilled about the prospect of getting a signal in this region,” Rev. Phil Derstine said. “For years, we’ve been on the fringe. We all have cell phones but you can’t use them consistently and that’s for every carrier."

Manatee County commissioners approved a 175-foot-tall communications tower at Christian Retreat in November 2009. Tech Tower Properties had planned to build it for T-Mobile and had expected to start construction within eight months. 

It never came to fruition.

“We were working on it two years before that,” Derstine said. “It’s a product of the economy and how it affected cell tower developers. They couldn’t produce. It took all those years to get out of a bad contract.” 

Derstine began cold calling cellular tower builders in hopes of moving the project along, and Christian Retreat contracted with Ridan Industries in March 2015. Verizon will be the anchor carrier.

The project was again delayed by the unexpected death of the company’s president, Kevin Barile, who had proposed potential cellular tower locations within GreyHawk Landing and on the campus at Peace Presbyterian Church.

Christian Retreat’s tower was far enough along in the design process that it could proceed.

During the original approval process, Christian Retreat leaders worked with its residents and other neighbors to address concerns, including restricting the use of uplighting on the cross and restricting the proportions of the cross itself. The tower’s placement is on the center of the property so it’s not in “anyone’s backyard,” Derstine said. 

Christian Retreat will use proceeds from the tower, the lease of the land plus a percentage from each carrier that uses it, to focus more efforts on serving the community through improvements to its Family Church building, improved services for children and youth and added income to support existing ministries, such as feeding the homeless and a food-and-clothing distribution program.

Derstine said the erection of the cross provides Christian Retreat, an international ministry reaching 53 countries, with an opportunity to rebrand itself within its own community, as well.

“The cross will become a locator for a lot of people,” Derstine said. “And for a church, the cross says it all.”