CROM Showcases its Superior Solutions and Design-Build Approach to Upgrade Aging Infrastructure
The David L. Tippin Water Treatment Facility is Tampa, Florida’s primary drinking water treatment plant. A facility-wide assessment identified critical assets that were approaching the end of their useful life. The High Service Pump station, Clearwell systems, blending chamber, and Hawkey box were identified as high-priority assets due to their importance to treatment capacity, system redundancy, and public health protection.
Constructed in 1924, the facility is designated an American Water Landmark by the American Water Works Association (AWWA). To preserve its appearance, the City elected to restore the existing underground hydraulic structures instead of constructing new ones above grade.
In addition to addressing aging infrastructure, the City needed to improve system resiliency and prepare the plant for future expansion. Existing structures exhibited concrete deterioration, cracking, spalling, hydraulic deficiencies, and other conditions that required rehabilitation. Because the facility supplies drinking water to the Tampa region, construction activities had to be carefully coordinated to maintain continuous plant operations throughout the project.
Miles of Structural Crack Injections
Gallons of Daily Water Loss Eliminated
PSI Ultra-High-Pressure Demolition
An Integrated Design-Build Partnership
The City leveraged CROM’s Progressive Design-Build (PBD) delivery model with a single integrated team responsible for planning, engineering, procurement, construction, startup, and commissioning.
As structures were drained, cleaned, and inspected, information gathered in the field was rapidly incorporated into engineering decisions and repair plans. CROM’s restoration included:
- Design and construction of a new High Service Pump Station
- Crack injections to repair three miles of cracks and eliminate the more than one million gallons of water lost each day.
- New ballast floors for the 7.5MG Clearwell
- CROM’s 40k Ultra-High-Pressure demolition to create keyways for walls
- A new keyway in the existing Clearwell slab
- Installation of rebar dowels at keyways
- Erecting a galvanized diaphragm inside the existing Clearwell
- Constructing shotcrete baffle walls
- New rebar and shotcrete to restore existing walls
- Replacement of underground expansion joints.
The finished project extended the service life of Tampa’s critical water infrastructure assets and enhanced the City’s ability to meet long-term water demands.
