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Metro Vancouver has awarded the contract for the new Lions Gate Secondary Wastewater Treatment Plant to ADAPT Consortium at a cost of CAD700 million (US$525 million).

The ADAPT Consortium includes Acciona Infrastructure, Dialog Design, Amec Foster Wheeler and TetraTech.

The ADAPT team has been selected to design, build and finance the new plant, which will provide secondary sewage treatment services to a population of about 200,000 residents of three municipalities and two First Nations on the North Shore. Metro Vancouver will maintain and operate the new facilities.

The plant will be situated on a 3.5-hectare site located on West 1st between Pemberton and Philip Avenues in the District of North Vancouver.

Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2017 with completion in December 2020. The existing wastewater treatment plant will be decommissioned beginning in 2021 and the lands turned over to the Squamish Nation.

The existing Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant is required to be updated to secondary treatment no later than December 2020, as per Metro Vancouver’s Integrated Liquid Waste and Resource Management Plan, which was approved by the B.C. Environment Ministry in May 2011.

As we reported in December, Metro Vancouver received three proposals for the project. The shorlisted teams were: ADAPT; FIRST NARROWS, which included CH2M Hill, Kenaidan and EllisDon; and PCL PARTNERSHIPS, comprised PCL Constructors and North America Construction.

The new facility has received up to CAD212.3 million (US$158.6 million) from the Government of Canada and up to CAD193 million (US$144.2 million) from the Province. Metro Vancouver is committed to the remaining share of the CAD700 million in total estimated costs.

The ADAPT team has collectively been involved in more than 300 world-class wastewater treatment projects and have demonstrated both excellence in sustainability and resilient design, as well as award-winning design visions.Metro Vancouver Board Chair Greg Moore, said:

“The ADAPT team demonstrated that they can provide the best value for money while meeting the necessary requirements for a robust and sustainable treatment plant. We can now move forward in the next few months on this LEED Gold project and subsequent community amenities to meet the needs of our growing population.”

Darrell Mussatto, Chair of Metro Vancouver’s Utilities Committee, said:

“The new plant is extremely well thought-out with a clean, architectural form that connects with the industrial scale of the neighbourhood. The design is such that many people won’t even know that it is a wastewater treatment plant. Its façade accentuates the North Shore coastline and the waters of Burrard Inlet.”