The city of Hillsboro may now build a long-awaited water tower, after the city and county swapped land on Goldfinch Road.
The city’s Board of Alderpersons voted 7-0 Monday to finalize a deal with the county to exchange a .75-acre piece of property along Goldfinch for a 1/2-acre parcel nearby. Ward 3 representative Larry McMullin was absent.
The Jefferson County Council voted 6-0 on Nov. 27 to approve the deal.
No money will change hands in the deal.
Hillsboro City Administrator Jesse Wallis said the city originally acquired the parcel it gave to the county, which fronts Goldfinch Road, in 2009 after the Queen Real Estate Partnership of De Soto donated the land to the city so it could build a water tower to replace an aging tower on the Hillsboro Community Civic Club grounds, just south of the site.
Mayor Buddy Russell said the city then began engineering work on the tower.
In 2021, Jefferson County bought the Queen Partnership’s remaining 15.24 acres that surround the lot that had been donated to Hillsboro with the intention of someday building a new jail facility there. The county also owns 4 acres to the west of that parcel.
Soon afterward, Russell said, county officials called about the possibility of swapping land.
“When we looked at how we might develop the jail site, we thought we would probably be better served all around by working out an arrangement to give Hillsboro a 3/4-acre tract that might suit their purposes to put a water tower in and ours to eventually build a jail there. It made sense for us to get that rectangle along Goldfinch Lane out of that.”
In exchange for giving the county the .75-acre parcel, the city will acquire a 1/2-acre piece of land to the southeast, closer to but not facing Business 21, Wallis said.
“The tower will be built about 400 feet off of Business 21,” he said. “Even though we’re going to get a smaller piece of land, that won’t be a problem because with the original area, the land slopes up from Goldfinch and we couldn’t have used that. The new lot will be flat and we’ll be able to make use of it all.”
Wallis said it took a while from the initial proposal for the land swap to final approval.
“Some research needed to be done on our part, to see how much of the engineering could transfer to the new site and simply determine whether the site would be feasible for our use. It’s just how long it took.”
Wallis said some of the engineering work on the old site can be used for a tower on the new site.
He said construction bids have not yet been solicited, but the cost to build the 750,000-gallon tower has been estimated at $6 million.
The County Council has approved granting the city $2,112,500 from the $43.7 million it received under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) to help cover the cost of the water tower project.
Wallis said the city will sell bonds to pay for the rest of the tower design and construction.
Work, he said, may begin in mid-2024.
The old tower, he said, has a capacity of just 50,000 gallons and will be decommissioned when the new one goes online.
The city’s main water tower is at Hillsboro City Park at Hwy. 21 and Hwy. A in the south part of town and has a capacity of 300,000 gallons.
“This (new) tower should be the last tower we’ll need for quite some time,” Wallis said. “It’s needed for our current situation and will help us with residential and commercial growth in the future.”
Russell said he was glad the County Council approved the deal.
“This has been a lot of hard work on a lot of people’s parts, so I’m very happy, but there’s still a lot of work ahead of us in Hillsboro. But this tower will be a great thing for our city’s future growth.”
Gannon said there’s no timetable for building a jail on the property because a funding source needs to be identified.
“Ultimately, a jail will be built, and the plans are to build it on that property,” Gannon said. “And when the jail is built, it would have to have access to water, so we’ll definitely be a consumer of the new Hillsboro water tower.”
“This is a win-win for all concerned,” Wallis said.