A new one million gallon water tower is currently under construction just southeast of the intersection of Coon Rapids Boulevard and Foley Boulevard. Once completed, the new tower will replace the oldest water tower in the city, which is located at Northdale Boulevard and Foley Boulevard. That tower went into service way back in 1959.
"The current tower near Northdale and Foley Boulevard is 500,000 gallons, this will be a million so it is double the capacity,” said Public Works Director Tim Himmer. “And actually the location of that one, we're not able to fill that to its full capacity so we'll gain roughly 600,000 to 700,000 gallons of storage that we didn't previously have."
Crews have set the base and will soon start to pour the rings of reinforced concrete.
"It's the shaft, it's the main tube column that the tank then will sit on top of," Himmer said.
They'll eventually go up 19 levels high with the rings of concrete. This will take the project through the fall, and then the tank will be installed next year. Once finished, the new water tower will rise up nearly 160 feet into the sky.
"It's long overdue,” Himmer said. “It gives us that storage that we need and it's going to help balance the system a lot better."
Final construction on the new water tower should be completed by the fall of 2024.