Group wants to save Seminole Water Tower

SEMINOLE (FOX 13) - The stats are unremarkable: 110 feet high, 70 feet wide, 3 million gallons.

Since 1958 though, when it comes to the Seminole Water Tower, the numbers have added up to something you can't count.

"It reminds me of being home," said Lisa Stokes, who raised her family in a home across the street of the tower, which is near the intersection of 74th Avenue North and 113th Street.

"As an infant, when she saw the blue water tower, she would start to squeal in the car that that was the sign she was coming to our house," said Jeff Etter of the Seminole Historical Society.

But after 59 years, the water tower, that sits in a county park, is scheduled for demolition early this summer.

Stokes is worried the city is going to lose another icon.

"We have (already) lost a lot of orange trees, you know."

The county stopped processing water there in 2012, and felt upkeep of $8,000 to $10,000 a year wasn't worth it.

Etter started a group to save it.

"Whenever somebody comes to Seminole to visit people or whatever, everybody says you go past the blue water tower, you turn at the water tower," he said.

Monday night, a group of about a dozen, including the city manager, talked options to save it.

Could they raise $500,000 to buy the park from the county, $125,000 upkeep, and $25,000 for a paint job?

"To come up with $650,000 is a lot of money," said Councilor Jim Quinn. "We do not want to use taxpayer money."

Quinn says they should find corporate sponsors or ask the county to sell the tower separate from the rest of the 1.25 acre park.

Etter warns demolition would lead to yet another shopping center.

"Why can't this become a piece of public art?"

But one passerby had no problem if the city saved all the trouble.

"It's kind of an eyesore to be honest with you."

Selling sentimentality only goes so far.