Water seemed to be the name of the game for Centerville City officials, who, in December, approved the final site plan for the Oakdale Drive water storage tank and a replacement for the City Hall well.

The water storage tank and electrical building will be located on 3.29 acres at 1470 North Oak Drive in an existing public facility district located on the hillside. There will be a detention basin at the bottom of the hill to manage run off, City Engineer Kevin Campbell said.

“The subject property is surrounded by mostly single-family homes and rural community land or county land,” City Planner Sydney DeWees told the planning commission Dec. 11. “The proposed project would not change the low-density character of the area.”

The conceptual site plan for this project was approved by the planning commission on Nov. 13, 2024.

“With input from multiple city departments this location has been selected as the most suitable for the project considering both land conservation and functional spa space utilization within the city limits,” DeWees said at that time. “The presence of this water tank will be a vital asset for emergency services contributing to the overall Public Safety and supporting the area’s resilience to get against fire related hazards.”

Building the new water storage tank will bring several benefits to the city, Public Works Director Mike Carlson said.

“I think it’s a great project for the city. It’s going to enhance our water system, so I think it’s a good deal,” Carlson said. “We get an extra half million gallons of storage for firefighting and things like that and I think all in all it’s going to be a great project especially when we relandscape we’ll get more native plants on there than we have.”

The city will spend around $4,000 planting more native plants in the area that will not require external watering after they’re established so the site will require only minimal maintenance, he added.

The planning commission voted unanimously to approve the final site plan for the storage tank and electrical building on Dec. 11.

On Dec. 3 the city council voted to award a $45,543 contract for a new City Hall well pump, column and all related components to the Nickerson Company. Initially Carlson had hoped that the well just needed its pump repaired, but in the end the well needed to be completely overhauled, he said.

Through this process, the city staff “has taken all necessary steps to ensure the longevity of the system,” the staff report said. The well’s flow may need to be reduced from 900 GPM gallons per minute to 850 GMP to minimize the amount of fine sand that has been damaging the bowls, it said. 

Carlson did not get any response from two other local contractors to bid on the project but that may have been because Nickerson had already been on site and had removed the pump and column to determine what was wrong with the well, he said. λ