Water infrastructure rarely gets a billion-dollar headline. Hillsborough County just wrote one. Garney broke ground on the $1.2 billion One Water project, a wastewater conveyance, treatment, and reuse program that ranks as the largest capital improvement in the Florida county’s history.
The scope is built for growth. It pairs a new advanced wastewater treatment facility with more than 20 miles of pipeline, expanding both treatment capacity and the county’s ability to recycle water back into the system. With groundbreaking done, the job moves to vertical work on the treatment buildings and lift stations, with initial flows targeted for September 2028 and full completion in 2030.
Why water is suddenly a megaproject category
Projects like One Water are showing up because two pressures are colliding. Sun Belt counties are absorbing population faster than their 1970s-era treatment plants can handle, and federal infrastructure money has made the financing easier to pencil. Reuse is the other driver. When new freshwater supply is scarce, treating wastewater to a standard you can put back to work stops being optional.
The delivery model is the tell
Garney is running this as a progressive design-build, the same collaborative model showing up on more big public jobs because it lets owner and builder set price and scope together as design matures rather than bidding a fixed package upfront. For a system this sprawling, with 20-plus miles of pipe threading developed land, that flexibility is the point.
Water and wastewater don’t draw the attention that rail and stadiums do, but the spending is real and the pipeline is filling. Hillsborough’s bet is that you build the capacity before the growth arrives, not after. Construction Dive has the details. For another fast-growing-region crossing in procurement, see the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion.