Water Utility

Two Madison Water Utility public works projects have won a total of six engineering and construction awards
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The 1.3 million gallon Lake View Water Tower (1212 Northport Dr.) actually contains two separate reservoirs and provides water and fire protection to two areas of Madison’s North Side – the immediate, higher-elevation neighborhood surrounding Lake View Hill Park and a larger area down the hill, from Cherokee Marsh to Maple Bluff. Completed in 2016, it’s the first dual-zone water tower in Wisconsin.

Madison Water Utility principal engineer Al Larson says building something as unique as Lake View Water Tower was incredibly complex.

“You’ve got a million gallons of water on the bottom. You’ve 300,000 up on top. And you’ve got an empty spot in between them. So you’ve got to balance all these forces, and structurally, you’ve got to support it.”

The tower has earned a 2018 Engineering Excellence Best of State Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Wisconsin and earned a national Honor Award from ACEC in Washington D.C.

Landmark Structures was the contractor on the project, with SEH, Inc. working as the project consultant and architecture design from Potter Lawson, Inc.

Paterson St. Ops Center

Starting just three months after Lake View began, the Paterson St. Operations Center (110 S. Paterson St.) reconstruction project brought new technology and safety to Madison Water Utility’s aging 1920s-era facility. The building is used 24 hours a day and serves as a home base for the utility’s dispatch center and emergency repair crews.

“We had to come up with a way that we could put a multi-functional modern facility onto a very small site and still be able to move around the site and do the functions that we needed to do as a water utility,” explains Larson.

Joe Daniels Construction Company was general contractor on the project, with Mead & Hunt designing the new facility.

The new Operations Center earned two 2018 Engineering Excellence awards from ACEC Wisconsin, including a Best of State award for innovative storm water design.

“Normally on a development you build a pond to handle storm water. But if you don’t have any space, what do you do? We put in a tank underground to remove sediment from the runoff, so it’s essentially storm water treatment,” Larson says. “And then that treated water is discharged into the storm sewer system at a very slow rate.”

The new facility was also honored with a Project of Distinction Award by the Association of Builders & Contractors and a national ACEC Recognition Award.