Anticipating future water storage needs, the Vancouver City Council voted Monday to buy 12 acres from Sharp Electronics Corporation for a water reservoir.
The city doesn’t yet have designs for the reservoir or a development timeline.
Tim Haldeman, the city’s director of general services, said the reservoir won’t be built for eight to 10 years.
The site has been listed for sale for $2.4 million, but the land has been appraised at $2.1 million. The city will pay the appraised value; money for the property was included in the water department’s 2013-14 capital budget, according to a staff report.
The need for future water storage was identified in 2007, specifically in the eastern portion of the city’s water service boundary. The Sharp property, which sits just south of Northwest Pacific Rim Boulevard and east of Southeast Payne Road in Camas, is outside Vancouver’s city limits, but the location was considered ideal for the city’s future needs, according to a staff report distributed to the city council prior to Monday’s meeting.
