Construction of the 190-foot-tall water storage tank behind Cornerstone Market Place is underway, the first elevated tank added to the water distribution system in more than 50 years, the city said.
Interim City Manager Bill Burrough told the Hot Springs Board of Directors earlier this week that the concrete foundation was scheduled to be poured Saturday.
"It will begin at 5 a.m. and wraps up 95 truckloads later," he said. "It will be about 1,000 yards of concrete."
The board awarded an $847,343 contract to Coakley Co. Inc. of Hot Springs Tuesday to connect the 3 million-gallon composite tank to the distribution system. The contract will be paid from the $20 million bond issue the board approved earlier this year. Those funds and the uncommitted balance from a 2015 debt issue are paying for the $4.6 million tank.
The design by Crist Engineers, the city's water system consultant, calls for a 16-inch ductile iron pipe to connect the tank to the 12-inch main on Central Avenue at Snowbird Lane. The 1,971-foot line will run east down Snowbird Lane and connect to the 1-acre site at 154 Cornerstone Lane the city bought from Garrett Enterprises last year for $125,000.
A 2,185-foot, 24-inch ductile iron pipe will connect the tank to the 20-inch transmission line that runs along the King Expressway, hooking into the line behind On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina.
The city said it expects construction of the 16-inch line to begin by next month. Construction of the 24-inch line, which will traverse Cornerstone Lane between Lowe's and Office Depot before crossing Cornerstone Boulevard and turning north toward On the Border, won't begin until next year.
According to Crist's bid tabulation, Coakley's bid was the lowest of the six the city received earlier this month. Diamond Construction Co. of North Little Rock was the second lowest, coming in at $958,548. Pipe was the costliest line item. Coakley priced the 24-inch line at $136 per foot for a total cost of $297,160 and the 16-inch line at $183,303, or $93 per foot.
The new tank will give the city almost 12 hours of usable emergency storage, moving it closer to the 24 hours recommended by the Arkansas Department of Health. Water from the treatment plant the city is planning to build off Amity Road to the south will supply the tank.
"We certainly need this tank," Burrough told the board. "It's something that will be a great achievement. It's going to change the skyline and be here for decades to come. We're excited about it."
Bond fund balance
The city has committed $3,157,220 from the $20 million bond issue, according to information from the city's finance department.
The total doesn't include Coakley's contract or the roughly $500,000 the board authorized the city to spend earlier this week on 33 acres for a new water treatment plant on Little Mazarn Road.
The total does include $2.2 million in engineering contracts awarded to Crist. It won a $775,571 contract for preliminary engineering of the more than $90 million Lake Ouachita project, which is expected to bring the city's 23 million-gallon average day allocation from the lake online by 2022.
It also won a $1,209,305 contract to design improvements to dams in the city's Northwoods Urban Forest Park and a $298,250 contract to design and oversee the installation of new switchgear controlling the Ouachita Plant's four high-service pumps that push treated water from the city's Lake Hamilton allocation to the distribution system.
Local on 10/20/2018