The City signed a contract with Ayres in December 2019 with the understanding that the City had to meet a June 7 , 2020 , deadline for expenditures in TID 13 . Plans were in place by the deadline , even though the City had to find a new location for the water tower after the first selected parcel of land was removed from consideration .
Location , location , location
That led to the second factor that helped the project progress . Harris clearly remembers the telephone call with Stoffel when the two of them were looking at maps of the City and discussing potential sites for the planned water tower .
“ And Mike pointed out that we already had land near the City ’ s Well No . 10 ,” Harris said .
It was an ideal location , Stoffel said . “ It was City property , it was a relatively elevated site , and it was near a well and the distribution system ,” he said . “ There was plenty of room there for the tower .”
And the site near Well No . 10 linked with previous work to address low water pressure on the northern side of Medford .
“ Before we started discussing a third water tower for the City , we started setting the stage for a future high pressure system ,” Stoffel said . “ As part of work on Shattuck Street in 2018 we set up Well No . 9 to both feed the low-pressure side at that time and feed the high-pressure side in the future . We set it up so we could isolate the water distribution system at that point and pump Well No . 9 to the elevated system or the lower system . The third tower eliminated the need for a pumping system , and now Wells 9 and 10 both supply water to the upper pressure zone .”
Fortunate timing
The third factor was timing . Bids for street and utility projects that accompanied the water tower work were opened March 5 , 2020 – just 10 days before the shutdown for the coronavirus
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4 | TRENDS Ingenuity , Integrity , and Intelligence .