WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — You may have noticed a big change happening at 9th and Beverly. A new water tower is going up right next to the old one that’s been serving residents for about 100 years.

Wichita Falls Utilities Operations Manager Daniel Nix said the old water tower is so old, it’s simply beyond repair. He said this new one will be much larger and provide several benefits to those living and working in that area.

“It’s time for it to come down,” Nix said.

But the question is, how is this 100-year-old, half-million-gallon rusted water tower going to come down?

“Being on top of a hill and close to the new tower, I’m not sure how that demolition process will occur. It could be that they blow the legs and tip it over to the north or they could just disassemble it from the top down,” Nix said.

But Nix said that won’t occur until the new $4.5 million tower is completed. A tower that he said will last much longer than the previous one.

“It differs in two different ways. The method of construction, the old one is a riveted steel construction. This one is a concrete pedestal tower. The old one holds half a million gallons of water, and the new one will hold a million and a half gallons, so it’s three times the size,” Nix said.

Providing several benefits to those in the area.

“There will be more water in that area, so we’ll have better firefighter capacity, better pressure maintenance and it gives us a larger water supply to move north up the pressure plane up Loop 11,” Nix said.

Nix said they will also be laying roughly $800,000 worth of yard piping for the new tower which he said was much needed and should last significantly longer than the old one.

Nix said construction began on the new water tower back in September. He said if everything goes according to plan, which he said they haven’t run into any hiccups, the new tower is expected to be complete by February of 2024.