The $11.5-million Lift Station 87 Wet Weather Flow Transfer facility in St. Petersburg, Fla., is bolstering the city’s sewer and wastewater capabilities.

The lift station, completed in an aggressive 13-month schedule, is allowing the city to transfer sanitary sewer flows during heavy rain events between regional sanitary collection basins, balancing wet weather flows between the Southwest and Northwest Sanitary Service areas, improving efficiency and reliability. Archer Western Construction applied design-build principles to complete the progressive design-build (PDB) project on time and within budget and prevented localized sanitary sewer overflows. The PDB approach allowed the team to procure long-lead times at 30% design and accelerate the design to establish a guaranteed maximum price at 60% design.

The unmanned lift station operates manually during heavy rainfall, replacing aging utility access holes and 460 ft of degrading sanitary sewer pipe. An alternate route for 16,000 linear ft of force main piping saved time and minimized community impacts with horizontal directional drilling.