Jacobs and PCL picked for San Francisco's $1B wastewater nutrient upgrade

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has selected a joint venture of Jacobs and PCL Construction as progressive design-build contractor for the Southeast Treatment Plant Nutrient Reduction Project, which the utility estimates at about $1 billion. Jacobs announced the selection on 28 October.

What the job involves

Southeast is San Francisco's largest wastewater plant and treats nearly 80% of the city's flows. The project adds advanced treatment to cut discharges of total inorganic nitrogen into San Francisco Bay, so the plant meets tighter state and federal requirements. Neither Jacobs nor the SFPUC has published a construction schedule.

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The hard part is sequencing. As Construction Dive noted, the new process has to be built into the heart of the plant while it keeps treating the city's wastewater, which means tight tie-ins, temporary works and phased commissioning rather than a clean greenfield build.

"This is a major investment to help protect San Francisco Bay by reducing nutrients in wastewater." Stephen Robinson, Assistant General Manager for Infrastructure, SFPUC

Tom Meinhart, executive vice president at Jacobs, pointed to the firm's long record on wastewater design-build. Jacobs says it has more than 25 years of water design-build experience and more than 150 design-build projects and programs behind it, and it will also support the SFPUC's Social Impact Partnership, which funds community health, education and workforce training.

Why progressive design-build

Under progressive design-build, the owner picks the team early, design develops with the contractor at the table, and the price is agreed in stages rather than fixed at bid. For a live plant with complex process changes, it lets the owner and contractor work through constructability and shutdown planning before committing to a final price. That makes it a natural fit for a large, high-risk upgrade like this one.

The bigger picture

This sits alongside a run of large California water jobs for Jacobs, which reports about $12 billion in annual revenue and roughly 47,000 employees. They include a $185 million groundwater desalter expansion in Torrance with McCarthy that started construction in June, according to Construction Dive. For PCL, it adds a sizeable wastewater package to its US civil book, for an owner that, according to Robinson, has used both firms on major wastewater projects before.

What it means for hiring

In our view, live-plant upgrades reward contractors with commissioning managers, process mechanical superintendents and shutdown planners who have worked inside operating treatment plants. That is a narrow and well-paid talent pool.
Progressive design-build puts more weight on the preconstruction phase. Expect demand for design-build managers and estimators who can price in stages and work alongside the owner's engineers.
With large general contractors chasing both water and data centre work, we'd expect competition for experienced water project directors on the West Coast to stay tight.

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