The Hot Springs Board of Directors will consider an ordinance Tuesday night approving the purchase of property for a 190-foot-tall water storage tower behind Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse.
The ordinance would authorize the $125,000 purchase of 1 acre at 154 Cornerstone Lane from Garrett Enterprises Inc. The 2 to 3 million-gallon tank supported by the tower would add to the 11 active tanks in the city’s water system. All of the elevated tank’s capacity would be usable storage, increasing the 6.8 million gallons currently available to the system.
That availability provides fewer than 11 hours of storage during a 24-hour period of average demand and fewer than nine hours during a day of maximum demand, according to the Arkansas Department of Health’s 2016 survey of the water system.
The Hot Springs Planning Commission last month unanimously approved a conditional-use permit to locate the tower behind Lowe’s. The area carries the general business district zoning designation. Water storage towers are permitted by conditional use in those zones, even though the city’s table of permitted and conditional uses doesn’t include a water tower listing.
The city has said water towers fall under the water treatment plant listing, which are permitted by conditional use in a general business district zone.
Crist Engineers Inc., the city’s water system consultant, estimates a $5.18 million project cost. The board at its Nov. 7 meeting awarded a contract to Crist for design work associated with the project. The $3.9 million balance from a 2015 bond issue would pay for part of it
The balance of the cost would be provided by a $20 million bond secured by the water rate increase the board will also consider Tuesday night. It’s one of four bond installments totaling $110 million the city plans to issue over the next five years.
The proposed site is south of the Marquette Place neighborhood where a conditional-use permit was granted for the tower in June. The board adopted an ordinance later that month authorizing the purchase of the property for $210,000.
But neighborhood residents appealed the planning commission action to the board in July, prevailing in a 4-3 vote that required the city to find another site.
The Timbercrest RV and Mobile Home Park is the closest residential area to the newly proposed site.
It’s 530 feet above sea level and poses no navigational hazards to aircraft at Hot Springs Memorial Field, according to a letter the Federal Aviation Administration sent the city in September.
Unlike the Marquette Place location, the site isn’t adjacent to the 20-inch distribution main that runs along Pakis Road, requiring the city to build a 4,000-foot large diameter line to connect the tower to the main. The city estimated earlier this year that installation and easement acquisition for the connecting line represents about 15 percent of the project cost.
The purchase of the 1-acre site will require it to be split from the 20-acre parcel it’s currently part of.