The largest construction package so far for Denton's new wastewater treatment plant goes before the city's Public Utilities Board at 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in the Council Work Session Room at City Hall, 215 E. McKinney St.
Staff are asking the board to recommend a second guaranteed maximum price amendment with Sundt Construction, the Irving-based construction manager on the Pecan Creek Water Reclamation Plant expansion. The amendment is capped at $317,024,218, made up of a $303,895,260 guaranteed price and $13,128,958 in contingency that only the city can draw on, with written sign-off from its project manager.
It would bring the total value of Sundt's construction contract to $409,345,783. The board's vote is a recommendation; the City Council has the final say.
Why the city is building new
Pecan Creek, built in 1963, is the only wastewater plant the city has. It is permitted for 21 million gallons a day and now averages about 15 million, or 71% of its limit, according to the agenda sheet.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality rules require a utility to begin designing added capacity once flows hit 75% of the permit and to begin construction at 90%, and the city began design work in 2023. TCEQ approved a new 30-million-gallon-a-day discharge permit in 2025.
A condition assessment of the 60-year-old plant in August 2025 concluded that replacing it would cost less than repairing and enlarging it. A comparison in the staff presentation puts the rehab-and-expand route at about $636.7 million, finished in July 2034, against about $503.8 million for a new 30-million-gallon plant finished in December 2031, a difference of roughly $133 million.
The new plant will use membrane bioreactor treatment, along with new headworks, solids screening, solids handling, UV disinfection and an operations building.
