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TOPEKA, Kansas (March 29, 2018) — Work to overhaul a pump system critical to providing Topeka-area residents and businesses clean, reliable and efficient water service has earned statewide recognition for excellence.
Rehabilitation of the Layne High Service Pump Station, a design-build project designed and executed by a team led by Burns & McDonnell and CAS Constructors, won an Award of Honor from Associated General Contractors of Kansas during the 2017 State Building Awards, presented this month in Wichita during the Kan-Struct Conference. Sponsors for the conference included AGC, the Mid-America Region of the Design-Build Institute of America, and the Kansas chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies.
The project allowed the city of Topeka to safely, efficiently and reliably upgrade the larger of its two pump stations at the city’s water treatment plant. Using a phased approach, the Burns & McDonnell/CAS Constructors team kept the Layne pump station running while doing updates during the summer, allowing the plant to continue producing up to 60 million gallons of treated water per day for customers in Topeka, Shawnee County and six rural water districts.
Working with city officials and operators, the Burns & McDonnell/CAS Constructors team overhauled the 35-MGD station, which has five pumps and opened in 1953. The work — from replacing pumps, valves and stairs to repairing motors, cleaning pipes and renovating the ventilation system — finished ahead of schedule and within the $2.6 million project budget, which included additional work to generate maximum value for the overall project expected to boost the station’s useful life by 30 years.
“The partnership between the city of Topeka and Burns & McDonnell was integral in completing this project and making it successful,” says Paul Bodner, water facility engineer for the city of Topeka. “Knowing that a failure in the existing system could cause total and systemwide consequences, we approached this as a team project from the very beginning, with maximum collaboration among all team members. That’s why we used a progressive design-build delivery method. It was the only way we could successfully complete this extremely complex and critical project.”
Adds Jeff Klein, project manager for Burns & McDonnell: “We’re proud to be able to help the city of Topeka strengthen its ability to provide consistent, efficient and high-quality water services for years to come.”
About Burns & McDonnell
Burns & McDonnell is a family of companies made up of more than 6,000 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be on Fortune’s 2018 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.