Water tower design criticized

The design for a copper-colored, 79-foot-tall water tower to be built on Queen Anne Hill is mediocre, unimaginative, even an eyesore in the eyes of some residents and City Council members.

"To me it sounds like it's going to look like the Great Pumpkin rising from the pumpkin patch," said Seattle City Councilman Tom Rasmussen.

Despite the criticism, the council today is likely to approve a master-use permit for the $13.3 million tower and underground water-pump station, a Seattle Public Utilities project.

The 2-million-gallon tower is to replace two existing towers, each more than 100 years old and one a historic landmark. Those towers, at 110 Lee St., are seismically vulnerable and deteriorating, said Bill Heubach, senior civil engineer for Seattle Public Utilities. Their storage capacity is also insufficient, he said.

The towers serve approximately 30,000 people in Queen Anne, and the new pump station would increase water pressure to about 600 residential connections, utilities spokeswoman Susan Harper said.

Harper said the two towers could crumble in the event of an earthquake larger than the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually earthquake of 2001.

Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, chairman of the Urban Development & Planning Committee, said no one disputes the necessity of the tower — it's the design that's been at issue.

"This is a major new imposing structure on the top of Queen Anne that will be visible from all over and it's going to be there for 50 to 100 years," Steinbrueck said. "For a city as beautiful as ours, we should expect better."

Adding trees and shrubs around the water tower — which is part of the plan — wouldn't be adequate, he said.

"It's like trying to hide an elephant with a napkin," Steinbrueck said.

But the tower's design was a product of an extensive public process, Harper said. Seattle Public Utilities has held 18 community meetings since 1993.

The project has become a multiyear effort because of the involvement of several agencies and departments, Harper said. Budget constraints also put the project on hold for several years.

"A lot of the questions that the council is posing to us were asked during the community process, and we were able to reach a consensus with the community during those meetings," Harper said. "I don't think anyone is leaping for joy, but I think people were satisfied that their voices were heard."

The city has spent more than $2.7 million on design and planning for the tower and pump station, so Steinbrueck isn't looking to delay the project.

"If it's going to cost more and it's going to delay the project, I don't know if the support will hold," Steinbrueck said.

Rasmussen said it's time to move on.

"It's important for the council to make decisions and not delay this any further," Rasmussen said.

The project is a poster child for the "Seattle process," Rasmussen said: "It's taken so long and cost so much to get a product that isn't satisfactory to the community," he said.

Ellen Monrad, chairwoman of the Queen Anne Community Council, also thinks it's time to start building the water tower.

"A water tower is a water tower, and it's very difficult to disguise it," she said. "Thirteen years is an awful long time and an awful lot of money."

The community council approved the proposal that's before the City Council, she said.

"They had a community process; we thought we had a design," she said. "Now the City Council doesn't like it. I don't know what to think now."

Queen Anne resident David Billstrom is less than satisfied. He said he understands the need for a new water tower but was hoping for more creativity in its design.

"It looks more like an oil tank than not," Billstrom said.

But another resident, Lara Wyles, is ambivalent.

"It's a water tower, not a mansion," Wyles said.

Anne Kim: 206-464-2591 or akim@seattletimes.com