Our team is leading the progressive design-build delivery of Wichita's Northwest Water Facility via a joint venture partnership with Alberici.
A progressive design-build approach allows us to facilitate collaboration among the city, designer and contractor at the earliest possible stages of the project to see that the design progresses with input from all project stakeholders. As the design evolves, our team can make design decisions within the context of the capital budget and life cycle cost, ultimately maximizing value.
In 2018, the team defined the requirements of a new 120-MGD facility and completed the preliminary design that had the ability to treat 100% groundwater, 100% surface water and any blend of the two independent sources to current and anticipated drinking water standards. This flexibility — to use any available water source at a given time — provides much-needed drought resiliency to the City of Wichita.
The facility was designed to include the equivalent of 24 hours of water storage and a high-service pump station to facilitate water delivery directly to the existing and planned water distribution system. On-site underground electrical power and backup generators will provide the facility with sufficient power in the event the plant experiences a power outage or severe weather event.
After a year of preliminary design, value engineering and process optimization, our team delivered the City of Wichita a $494 million cost proposal — $15 million below the city’s capital budget — with a projected $6 million per year in operational savings. Our team also helped the city complete its application for Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This facility is one of 38 water infrastructure capital projects the EPA is financing.