Lift station estimate tops $27 million

McKim and Creed, the engineering firm in charge of completing the Lift Station 87 project, has put a price tag on the cost of overcoming the various problems that have affected the project over the past six years: $27.1 million.

At Monday’s City Commission meeting, representatives from McKim and Creed presented an updated cost estimate for completing the project. Although Lift Station 87 is largely in place in Luke Wood Park, recently discovered errors by the previous engineers require significant reconstruction, according to city staff.

To date, $13.4 million has been spent or obligated toward the lift station project, $8.9 million of which was spent before McKim and Creed took over in August. The estimated remaining expenses to finish the lift station total $13.7 million. The city is pursuing litigation against the previous engineers to recover some costs.

The project’s original budget was $12.5 million, with an expected completion date in December 2011. In January, the projected cost was roughly $21 million.

Despite the issues, Utilities Director Mitt Tidwell told the commission that it made sense to proceed with the current site.

“We've already invested in the site, and some portion is reusable,” Tidwell said. “Some we'll have to modify, and some we'll have to replace. It's where we are.”

With a consent order in place to upgrade the city’s wastewater management system by April 2016 — including replacing the aging Lift Station 7, as Lift Station 87 is designed to do — commissioners were largely focused on overcoming the issues at the current site.

As part of the construction, segments of the lift station that will be regularly accessed by workers must now be raised to an elevation that will withstand a Category 2 storm surge. Currently, plans call for the ground to also be raised, keeping the structure largely concealed.

Tidwell said another option for the lift station would be to store some of the underground equipment above ground for protection in case of a Category 2 storm surge, screening it behind a structure that could be made to look like a house. City Manager Tom Barwin said deciding whether or not to build a visible structure was an issue for commissioners to settle.

The projected completion date of the Lift Station 87 project is Jan. 13, 2016, with construction slated to begin this October.

Contact David Conway at [email protected]