The Clean Water Voice
Collaborative Delivery: Driving Certainty and Success in Water Infrastructure Projects
By: Brian Daly, P.E., North America Director for Water Design Build; AECOM, Garrett Kehoe, P.E., Regional Construction Manager, AECOM; Bohdan Bodniewicz, P.E., AECOM; SWIFT Program Manager; Kyle Swanson, General Manager, Padre Dam Municipal Water District; Bruce Husselbee, Chief Engineer, Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD); Jason Brown, Director, Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities; and Will Peterson, P.E., West Water Strategy and Growth, AECOM
Water agencies are facing a complex mix of challenges: meeting new regulatory requirements, managing affordability for customers, and planning for long-term operations and resilience. In this environment of uncertainty and rising needs, it's key to use strategies that maximize value. Collaborative delivery models such as Progressive Design-Build (PDB) and Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) offer utilities a practical path forward. These models provide flexibility, accelerate schedules, and improve cost certainty, helping utilities manage risk and deliver multifaceted projects efficiently while maintaining a focus on affordability and long-term value.
Figure 1. Shift in Delivery Methods in the Water Sector: Collaborative Delivery Anticipated to Become More Predominant. Source: FMI 2025
Why Collaborative Delivery?
When used on complex projects, traditional design-bid-build often results in fragmented communication, change orders, and schedule delays because of management by the owner of two independent contracts, with a designer and contractor who are working independently. The collaborative delivery approach shifts that dynamic by integrating owners, designers, and builders early in the process. Collaborative delivery models set up frameworks that can enable projects to be delivered faster, with greater flexibility, improved risk management, and cost certainty compared to traditional design-bid-build methods.
Construction Manager at Risk is a collaborative delivery method in which the owner holds separate contracts with a designer and a construction manager. The CMAR is engaged during design to provide preconstruction services, such as constructability reviews, phasing and sequencing analysis, cost estimating, schedule development, and risk management. At an agreed point in design, the owner and CMAR negotiate a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP), and the CMAR assumes responsibility and cost risk for delivering the project within that amount, subject to defined contingencies.
Figure 2. Construction Manager at Risk: Contractual and Embedded Relationships among the Owner, Designer, and Construction Manager, and Key Project Entities that Define the CMAR Delivery Method. Source: WCDA 2025
Progressive Design-Build is a form of design-build in which the owner selects a single integrated design-build team, including a designer and a contractor, based on their qualifications (and limited price factors), and collaborates with that team during an initial scope development phase. During this phase, scope, design, risk allocation, and pricing are jointly developed before negotiating a final contract price (often a Guaranteed Maximum Price [GMP] or lump sum).
Figure 3. Progressive Design Build: Contractual Framework and Embedded Relationships among the Owner, Design-Builder, and Key Project Entities that Characterize the PDB Delivery Method. Source: WCDA 2025
Success starts with these fundamental elements:
- Transparent, open-book GMP pricing removes surprises by collaboratively reviewing labor rates, subcontractor bids, markups, and contingencies. This transparency encourages shared accountability and allows value engineering to happen in real time—not as a reactive step after pricing.
- Team selection and culture: Delivery teams with a proven track record of collaboration, and the right cultural fit, move faster and with less friction. Getting the right team starts with comprehensive assessments during the procurement phase.
- Culture of communication: Clear structure for team communication, including executive check-ins, working forums, and facilitated issue-resolution workshops, are critical. These build trust and reduce the likelihood of disputes.
- Transparent governance: Programmatic decision frameworks and clear role definition prevent scope and interface ambiguity across multi-package capital programs.
- Flexibility and timing: Market volatility demands an adaptive mindset. Successful programs are prepared to re-sequence procurement, pause milestones, or adjust GMP pricing assumptions without losing momentum.
- Investment in training: Owners who equip their teams through DBIA, WCDA, and other collaborative delivery training programs adopt the model more smoothly and build confidence across the organization.
- During CMAR, early contractor engagement at the 30% design milestone: Early engagement brings construction expertise to support schedule, sequencing, risk allocation, and procurement strategies. This early influence reduces change orders, minimizes procurement delays, and helps maintain schedule certainty.
Together, these principles enable utilities to navigate project complexity and deliver infrastructure that is resilient, economically sustainable, and operationally successful for decades to come.
Case Studies in Collaborative Success
East County Advanced Water Purification Project, Santee, California
Project Snapshot: $1.2 billion potable re-use program producing 30 percent of East County’s drinking water demand
East County’s $1.2 billion Advanced Water Purification (AWP) Project is an exemplar of collaborative delivery’s power. This ambitious initiative addresses the region’s drought vulnerability and heavy reliance on imported water by producing up to 30 percent of East County’s drinking water demand through state-of-the-art potable re-use.
In the largest re-use project in the country, recycled wastewater is purified through multi-stage treatment, including membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet advanced oxidation, and then blends purified water into Lake Jennings Reservoir before final treatment. This process reduces wastewater discharge into the Pacific Ocean while securing a drought-proof local water supply.
Figure 4. East County Advanced Water Purification Project Multi-Packages. Sources: SanGIS, SANDAG, San Diego Eagle Aerial, East County AWP JPA 2025
Facing technical and regulatory complexity, East County adopted a PDB delivery model. The design-builder worked closely with the owner and the owner’s team, conducting numerous workshops that focused on technical solutions operability, constructability, and value engineering. This early collaboration streamlined schedules and reduced redesigns. GMP pricing was established at 60% design completion, balancing cost certainty with necessary flexibility.
The team held monthly executive and programmatic meetings, fostering transparency and facilitating swift resolution of disputes and scheduling conflicts, interfacing issues across its five packages. Operators were brought in as early as 10% design, so that operational needs could influence design decisions early on.
Risk responsibilities were thoughtfully assigned to minimize costly risk transfer premiums. Moreover, performance guarantees were tied to acceptance testing, so that the finished plant could meet the required operational standards—an assurance seldom offered by traditional methods.
East County’s collaborative approach exemplifies how early integration, transparent pricing, and proactive communication are able to unlock schedule confidence, budget control, and stakeholder satisfaction in large water projects.
Hampton Roads Sanitation District SWIFT Program, Virginia
In Virginia, HRSD is leading the nearly $3 billion Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow (SWIFT) Program, an advanced water treatment effort that is designed to recharge the local aquifer with highly treated wastewater to meet regional sustainability goals.
Figure 5. SWIFT Program Elements, Source: HRSD 2025
HRSD’s success stems from a deliberately strong Owner Advisor (OA) role, providing specialized expertise, program integration, and staff augmentation across both design-build and fixed-price projects. Early and sustained contractor involvement enabled value engineering, constructability reviews, and collaborative risk management, resulting in better schedule performance and cost outcomes.
The program demonstrates how early team formation and OA-enabled decision-making was able to preserve agility, even during COVID-19 supply chain challenges. Furthermore, a transparent culture with regulators, environmental stakeholders, and the community fostered trust. Risk allocation was flexible, assigning management where best suited, avoiding inflated contingencies.
HRSD is committed to transparency and contractor collaboration, as it intentionally strives to maintain a coveted “owner of choice” status, with the explicit intent of attracting premier contractors and consultants to work on some of the most complex infrastructure projects the water/wastewater industry has seen. The SWIFT Program stands out as a national model for delivering complex water infrastructure through teamwork, transparency, and flexibility.
Salt Lake City Water Reclamation Facility, Utah
Salt Lake City’s 48-MGD, $800 million Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) upgrade is one of the largest infrastructure investments in the city’s history. A 60-year-old facility is being replaced to comply with new state phosphorus discharge limits while also improving odor control, seismic resilience, and long-term operational sustainability.
Beyond regulatory compliance, the City placed strong emphasis on community benefits and sustainability. Key priorities included reducing odors, managing costs to minimize impacts on ratepayers, and advancing sustainability outcomes—including community engagement, resource recovery, water conservation, facility resilience, and the re-use of materials on site.
Figure 6. Conceptual Layout of the New Salt Lake City Water Reclamation Facility. Sources: SLCDPU and AECOM 2025
Because of the project’s scale, complexity, and schedule, the City selected Construction Manager/General Contractor (CMGC) delivery. This was supported by an integrated delivery team, with Jacobs serving as Program Manager, Sundt/PCL as the CMGC, and AECOM as the Engineer, alongside a range of local and regional engineering firms, contractors, specialty consultants, and university partners.
CMGC delivery provided meaningful value during both preconstruction and construction. During preconstruction, the team leveraged real-time, open-book cost transparency, constructability, and value-engineering reviews, early identification of conflicts, phasing support to maintain plant operations, and proactive identification of critical schedule drivers.
During construction, the CMGC approach enabled continued value engineering as conditions evolved, flexibility in procurement strategies to address global supply-chain volatility, and early equipment purchasing to support phased construction and advance demolition activities.
A culture of collaboration was central to successful delivery. Regular, focused coordination among City staff, engineers, contractors, and regulators supported timely decision-making and risk management. Equally important was early and sustained engagement with facility operators, who played a key role in equipment selection, design development, phasing strategies, and training for new systems.
As the City’s first major alternative delivery project, success was driven by early buy-in across the team, a strong culture of collaboration and accountability, disciplined document management and tracking, and a consistent project-first mindset. The project demonstrates how CMGC collaborative delivery can help municipalities meet demanding regulatory and community objectives while maintaining cost and schedule certainty.
Conclusion
The future of water infrastructure delivery will be inherently collaborative, risk-informed, and stakeholder-centered. From California’s East County to Virginia’s Hampton Roads and Utah’s Salt Lake City, utilities are proving that early integration, flexible contracting, transparent communication, and robust governance accelerate delivery, control costs, and enhance community resilience. By embracing these collaborative delivery principles, utility leaders can better navigate today’s uncertainties and secure sustainable water infrastructure that will serve their communities for generations.
*Throughout this article, several graphics from the Water Collaborative Delivery Association (WCDA) are used to illustrate the relationships, roles, and entities involved in collaborative delivery methods. For reference, WCDA and the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) are industry-leading organizations that provide education, guidance, and best practices for collaborative and design-build delivery. WCDA focuses on water and wastewater projects, while DBIA establishes nationally recognized design-build best practices and training across sectors. Both are strong references for ongoing professional education.
The views expressed in this resource are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of NACWA.