Fort Lauderdale opened the Prospect Lake Clean Water Center, a $666 million drinking water plant delivered as a public-private partnership, on 15 October. The city's announcement was covered by Construction Dive on 20 October, which reports that the plant can treat up to 50 million gallons a day.
The partnership
The P3 brings together the City of Fort Lauderdale, IDE Technologies, Ridgewood Infrastructure and Kiewit Water Facilities Florida. Kiewit was chosen in 2023 to design and build the plant. The report doesn't set out the contract terms or how the work was split between IDE and Ridgewood.
Replacing a 1950s plant
The new centre takes over from the Fiveash Regional Water Treatment Plant, built in 1953. The old plant fell short of today's hurricane wind requirements, and keeping it compliant as new contaminants come under regulation would have meant heavy investment. Prospect Lake is engineered to withstand Category 5 winds and is meant to give the city more headroom as water quality rules tighten.
The switchover is gradual. Water from the new plant started entering the distribution system in September, and Fiveash will be kept on as a storage and distribution site.
"This is a transformational investment in the future of Fort Lauderdale" Dean Trantalis, Mayor of Fort Lauderdale
Why it matters for civil contractors
Water treatment is often treated as a separate world from heavy civil, but jobs like this are big, complex design-build programmes run by the same general contractors that build highways and dams. Using a P3 here also matters: the city brought in private partners rather than funding and procuring a conventional build on its own.
The need is not going away. The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2025 Infrastructure Report Card, cited by Construction Dive, gave US drinking water a C-, wastewater a D+ and stormwater a D. Many cities are sitting on plants of a similar age to Fiveash, and resilience against storms is now part of the brief, especially along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.
The same day, Halmar announced its first milestone on the MTA's 13-station accessibility P3. Between them, the two projects show alternative delivery moving into utilities and transit, not just toll roads.
What it means for hiring
- Design-build water plants need people who can bridge process engineering and civil delivery. We'd expect steady demand for water-sector design-build managers, process-mechanical superintendents and commissioning leads.
- Commissioning and phased switchovers like this one are specialist work. People who have taken a plant from construction into live operation are scarce and worth planning for early.
- As more cities look at P3s for utilities, contractors with in-house water teams may need commercial and finance-literate project directors as well as builders.
Building a team in Heavy Civil & Infrastructure?
Connor Goodall specialises in Heavy Civil & Infrastructure hiring at QP Group. Talk to Connor about the market, salaries or a search.
Sources
- Fort Lauderdale opens new $666M water treatment plant · Construction Dive · 20 Oct 2026
- Halmar completes Yankee Stadium stop on $965M subway upgrade · Construction Dive · 19 Oct 2026
Written by QP Group from the reporting and announcements above. Figures and quotes belong to the original sources.
connor.goodall@qpexec.com
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