Replacing a 70-Year-Old Force Main in the Heart of Downtown Tampa: A Design-Build Success Story

The City of Tampa's Harbour Island Force Main was constructed in 1951. This 54-in. wastewater force main conveys 20 million gallons a day of wastewater through downtown Tampa to the City's Wastewater Treatment Facility at the Port of Tampa. Without a redundant option, a failure of this pipeline would be catastrophic. In 2018, the City selected a design-build team to design and construct a new, first-rate reliable force main by means of a progressive design-build contract. The contract included three phases, the first was a preliminary phase to conduct an alignment study and determine the best route. The second phase included the design of the pipeline and a guaranteed maximum price (or GMP). The final phase included construction and start-up. The project spanned 7 years and included many challenges, including management of, at least, 20 stakeholders, coordination with six parallel projects, design of eight trenchless installations (including rehabilitation, horizontal directional drills, microtunneling, and jack and boring), permitting (US Army Corps, Port of Tampa, CSX railroad), complications with the pandemic, supply chain issues, unknown contaminated soils, three Stanley cups finals, and a Covid-era Super Bowl. Managing all of these stakeholders and focusing on the design need to work in parallel in order for the project to be a success. The success of this project can be contributed largely to the City of Tampa and their willingness to deliver this project through a collaborative delivery method, specifically Progressive Design-Build.