The two Queen Anne water towers will be replaced with one, 2-million-gallon steel tank, according to Seattle Public Utilities, though SPU engineer William Heubach said the design of the new water tower is still evolving. "It's not written in stone."
Speaking at a meeting of the Queen Anne Community Council last week, he also stressed that Queen Anne residents made it clear at a Jan. 18 public meeting they want to be involved in the design of the tank. Having the public involved is something the utility would prefer anyway, Heubach added.
There are currently two water towers at the top of Queen Anne Hill, and the concrete-clad one has been designated as a historic landmark.
The tanks - which were built early last century - hold 1.2 million gallons, but an SPU study in the early 1990s determined that the amount wasn't enough to serve a growing neighborhood population, Heubach said.
There was another reason they needed to be replaced, he explained. "Back in 1900, there were no seismic standards for water tanks." That puts neighborhood residents and a firehouse on the site at an unacceptable risk these days, according to Heubach.
"Finally, with 100-year-old tanks, the construction methods were not the same as they are today," he said. That and their age have led to deterioration of the tanks, which is one reason the Seattle Landmarks Preservation OK'd the demolition of the tank with the fanciful concrete shell, Heubach added.
The new tank will be built to withstand a "2,500-year earthquake," he said. "We're talking about a Seattle Fault-like event," Heubach said. It would be temblor that would, he explained, cause five or six times the amount of ground-shaking caused by the 2001 Snoqualmie quake.
The new tank will be 75 feet in diameter and 60 feet tall, said Steve Southerland, an architect SPU hired to work on the project. The height of the tank is limited by the hydraulics of the city water system, he added. SPU has also budgeted $200,000 for amenities on the site, which is not a lot, he conceded.
That was something picked up on by Bob Frazier from the Queen Anne Historical Society. "By not preserving the old (landmarked) tank, SPU saved over $2.6 million," he said.
"I appreciate your concern," Heubach told Frazier, "but the money is just not there." One reason for that is budget cuts made after 9/11, he added.
The plan so far is to put the new tank on a 15-inch base and to add 14-foot-tall fluted columns at eight points around the tower, Southerland said. The idea is to use the architectural elements to reflect the old, historical look of the tower with the concrete shell, he added.
The columns will be lighted, according to the current design. "We wanted to get a bit of glow behind each of these elements," Southerland said.
Susan Black, a landscape architect working on the project, noted the location is a crowded one because of the firehouse, the tennis courts (which will be resurfaced) and parking places. In addition, a Seattle City Light tower on the site will need a minimum of a 10-foot-wide access road on the west side off First Avenue North.
The access road would be screened from adjacent homes by hedges, there will be trees on the Lee Street and Warren Avenue North sides, and some of the ground cover might be replaced, she added.
Black said it might be possible to memorialize the old landmarked tank by incorporating a piece of it in the plaza around the new one. But the concrete is in poor shape, Black cautioned. "It might not hold up if it's cut." Alternatively, an interpretive panel about the old tower might be included in the design, she said.
The tank will be painted in a neutral color, although which one hasn't been decided on yet, Southerland said. "We'll present several options to people," he added.
Community council member Matt Rowe objected to spending the amenities budget at ground level instead of at the top of the new tank. A show of hands by those at the meeting indicated that about half of the people agreed with him.
The landmarked tank is an iconic structure seen from quite a distance, he said. "I just don't see it (the new tank) as a big pedestrian destination."
However, adding design features to the top of the tank is unlikely. Southerland said engineers have said they don't want anything attached to the top, an idea presented at the Jan. 18 public meeting.
Council member Don Harper asked whether SPU might consider renting space at the top for cellphone antennas. Placing cellphone antennas in a neighborhood is typically a contentious issue, but it might not be in this instance, according to Harper. "The community might be willing to have a cellphone tower if the money went to amenities," he said.
Heubach said the design of the project should be completed by next September, while construction is set to begin next January. The project should be substantially completed by October 2006, he added. "At that point, the tennis courts would be put back into service."[[In-content Ad]]
