Plans and cost outlook outlined for Mount Airy water-tank rehabilitation

Greater Cincinnati Water Works staff detailed a design-build rehabilitation of the Mount Airy tanks, emphasizing the site’s historic-landmark status, community interest in preserving the tanks’ exterior and the project’s likely scale and schedule.

“It's clearly a community icon,” said Annie Orth, Deputy Director for Infrastructure, describing the Mount Airy tanks at Coleraine and North Bend. Orth said the structure — constructed in 1926 and declared a City of Cincinnati historic landmark in February 2018 — contains 14 interior tanks (seven large, seven small) with roughly 8,400,000 gallons of storage across the footprint.

Orth described the project as a progressive design-build contract with two phases: a design phase under contract and a later construction phase that will require a guaranteed maximum price. Phase 1 (design) was described as a not-to-exceed $3,800,000 contract. A 2020 opinion of probable cost was cited at $13,000,000, and Orth said the final cost will likely exceed that and could be “north of $20,000,000.”

Historic and operational constraints: Orth said the utility intends to maintain the existing footprint and the outside architectural features where possible. “We made the decision to rehabilitate the entire footprint, and maintain when we walk away from it, it's gonna look the way that it does today,” she said. That approach requires coordination with the City’s Historic Conservation Board on means and methods for masonry, towers and other exterior features. Orth said preliminary design work is identifying what can be repaired versus what likely must be replaced, including towers that may need full replacement.

Schedule and community engagement: Orth said the design phase began after a contract executed in 2024, with the design phase projected to take about 16 months. The utility expects a 90% design by December of this year and a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) from the design-build team in early 2026, with construction planned to begin in 2026 and to take approximately two years. Water Works said it has met repeatedly with Mount Airy stakeholders and plans further community updates; the utility is also undertaking a feasibility study to consider complementary uses for adjacent parcels in coordination with the Department of City Planning and Economic Development and the recreation department.

Ending: The project team listed consultant and construction partners on the contract: Hazen and Sawyer (design lead), Elavar Group (architectural/historic work), Shrewsbury, Resource International, Clear Consulting, DJE (SCADA), and Dugan and Myers with Structural Systems Repair Group as the construction lead and subcontractor. Orth said the design-build structure encourages collaborative selection of long‑term repair methods appropriate to both historic preservation and water-quality needs.