A landmark structure in Mount Airy is getting some work done. The castle-like Mount Airy water tower atop a hill at the intersection of Colerain and North Bend is in need of structural repairs to its concrete and brick.
"The Mount Airy tanks were built in the 1920s at a very different time for the waterworks in our system and the city as a whole," says Andy Orth, deputy director of infrastructure for Greater Cincinnati Water Works. "They've had periodic renovations to them over the years, fixing bricks, etc, and it's to the point now where the structure needs a major overhaul."
Don't worry, Orth says, the castle design isn't going away. The brick and concrete is failing in some places and will need to be fixed, or possibly replaced. Cincinnati City Council in 2019 designated the towers as a local historic landmark, meaning any alterations must retain the original character of the design.
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"This tank was built in 1926-1927, and it's mostly a concrete cast-in-place structure with a lot of brickwork," says Orth. "That concrete and those bricks have just deteriorated over the last nearly 100 years. The way that they built it back then is a little bit more susceptible to freeze/thaw cycles, which means that the deterioration is picking up speed."
The bulk of the work will be on the exterior. Water Works has done some patching and repair work over the past few years, but now that the structure is nearly 100 years old, sturdier repairs are required to the facade.
Orth says the tanks themselves — there are seven large and seven small tanks within the structure, (an eighth small tower holds a staircase) — are intact and fine, though they may get some upgrades during the renovation process. The seven smaller tanks will be taken out of service as the water tower no longer needs to hold as much water as it once did. The current capacity is 8.5 million gallons.
Orth says residents shouldn't see any difference in their water during or after construction.
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"Part of what we're going to look at in the design is how to make it more usable for us. Obviously, when we built it in 1926 the city and the water system were quite a bit different than they are today, so that's a lot of water that we don't necessarily need at that location right now. Part of the design process is going to be to figure out how to optimize that for our current system."
Orth says work is design-build (as opposed to having separate contracts for design and construction). That aims to allow for more collaboration throughout the process to ensure "a solution that works both aesthetically as well as the long-term viability of the structure."
Preliminary survey work is underway now. Sampling, assessments, testing, and additional surveying will continue into 2025 with psychical construction likely coming toward the end of next year or 2026. Water Works has invested about $4 million into the project so far, Orth says, with a final price tag currently estimated at upwards of $20 million.
