To no one's surprise, a Tampa-based company has sued the city in federal court over the City Commission's denial of its request to build a 150-foot cell phone tower near Tarpon Springs High School.

Ridan Industries sought the rezoning to build a tower at the southwest corner of Gulf Road and Tarpon Drive. The lot is vacant but has been approved for a retail and office project known as Gulf Breeze Plaza.

Ridan executives say they looked throughout western Tarpon Springs before settling on the Gulf Breeze Plaza site.

"This isn't a perfect spot, but it was the best spot," company president J. Kevin Barile said Wednesday. "We definitely looked at all the available spots out there."

Ridan Industries contends in a 29-page lawsuit that city commissioners had no good reason to deny its request. But they did, voting unanimously Nov. 4 to reject the rezoning request after a half-dozen residents complained that the tower would undermine property values and create a nuisance.

At their meeting Tuesday night, city commissioners spent little time discussing the suit or responding to its allegations. They did, however, agree to meet in a private executive session next Tuesday to discuss legal strategy.

"I knew this litigation was coming," City Attorney John Hubbard told commissioners. "I have been anticipating it for some time."

At the time of the vote, Hubbard said the public's increasing dependency on mobile telephones virtually guaranteed that Ridan Industries would win a legal battle with the city, just as it had won a similar case involving Pinellas Park.

A 1996 federal law gives towns little leverage in their efforts to keep cell phone towers out of their communities.

The law says towns must accommodate the placement of enough towers to ensure that 911 callers can be located and that proper coverage is provided. That's not the case in Tarpon Springs, according to Ridan Industries' suit, which was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Tampa.

The suit contends that a gap in cell phone coverage has existed in western Tarpon Springs since before 2000. Moreover, it says no existing zoning in that area allows telecommunications towers to be built. Not only that, but the city didn't own any property that met the needs of the company, and School Board and parks officials also declined to allow a cellular tower on their property.

Ridan's market research and discussions with wireless telephone companies showed a a tower was needed in western Tarpon Springs within about a quarter-mile of the intersection of Gulf Road and Tarpon Drive, according to the suit.

Without a tower in that area now, wireless carriers cannot determine the location of a cell phone user who is calling 911 with the accuracy required by the federal government, it said.

The lawsuit also notes that its proposed tower wouldn't be the first tall structure in the neighborhood. At nearby Tarpon Springs High School, the light stanchions on the football field are 112 feet tall.

Ridan Industries' 150-foot-high structure would be designed to blend in with the design of the buildings at Gulf Breeze Plaza, according to the company. Barile said the tower would be at the back of the .89-acre property and would have fiberglass screens to hide its antennae. The effect, he said, would be "very similar" to that of a cell phone tower disguised to look like a bell tower at George Young Memorial United Methodist Church in East Lake.

Up to seven cell phone carrier companies, including T-Mobile and Verizon, would be able to lease space on the tower.