At risk of a catastrophic failure, the City of Lewiston’s 100-year old water treatment plant is the primary water source for over 15,000 customers. As Owner Advisor, Brown and Caldwell implemented best practices and creative approaches to help the City procure a qualified design-builder and manage plant upgrades that would deliver the next generation of water treatment.
BC’s innovative procurement process shortlisted two teams during the RFP period, giving the City a chance to work with each team during several all-day workshops. This provided the City with first-hand insights into collaboration with each team and allowed the teams to advance technical concepts calibrated with City input. The selected design-builder leveraged this opportunity to develop a temporary treatment strategy, shaving more than a year off the project schedule and minimizing risks during construction.
The design-build team commissioned four temporary trailers that mirrored the permanent treatment system and equipment as the new facility while the aging plant was demolished. The trailers enabled the plant’s operators to learn the new system, with six additional months of hands-on experience prior to the new plant being operational.
The team also executed more than $10 million in early works packages to hedge against rising costs, material delays, and supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Portions of the design were accelerated to make timely critical decisions for equipment selection and material types to develop the contract packaging strategy.
Extensive teamwork between the City of Lewiston, BC, and the design-builder, resulted in the $29.3M project being completed within 2.5% of the budget and two years ahead of the City’s initial schedule. The new membrane treatment plant has the flexibility to deliver up to 10 million gallons per day, operates with improved reliability, and has space to expand to 16.7 MGD to meet future water supply demands.
“Brown and Caldwell defined a procurement strategy that allowed us to collaborate with design-build respondents in a meaningful way, ahead of selection.”
Alannah Bailey, City of Lewiston