Grayslake approves $5 million water tower project at Cornerstone site

Grayslake leaders have approved a $5 million plan to build a new 1 million-gallon capacity water tower and water metering station at Cornerstone, the 641-acre mixed-use development site at Peterson Road and Route 83.

The plan will ensure there will be more than enough water for the growth in the area anticipated by the village and Alter Group, the site developer, officials say.

The Cornerstone development site, purchased and annexed into the village in 2009, sat dormant until last year when Alter Group signed a deal with Medline to be the site's first tenant.

Mayor Rhett Taylor said the village has the capacity to provide water to Medline, but it is prudent to expand the water infrastructure for future development.

"This may accelerate development in the area," Taylor said Tuesday night, when the village board voted unanimously in favor of the plan.

"It's one of our core missions to deliver clean water to our residents and I think it's important to note that the story in the United States is that we have crumbling infrastructure and here in Grayslake we not only have updated, but we have redundancies," Trustee Elizabeth Davies said. "While it's not the most exciting thing on our agenda, it is a really important piece and it's exciting to me."

The winning bid to build the water tower came in from Plainfield-based CB&I Storage Tank Solutions, which bid $3,421,300 for the work. The winning bid for the water metering station came from Waukegan-based Boller Construction Company, at $1,468,800. The metering station will be near the tower and allow the village to better track how much water is flowing through the system.

Taylor acknowledged that the bids came in higher than village staff anticipated, but said it is still important to act now.

"The expectation is, if anything, that we will see an increase in bids as we move throughout the year," he said.

The village will have the opportunity over the next couple of years during construction to revisit how to pay for the project.

"It's not as if we have to write the check tomorrow," Taylor said.

Davies said the village could recapture some of the money spent on the water tower project by charging connection fees to customers as the area develops.