$73.8M Tampa Drinking Water Plant Master Plan Will Need 6 Low Voltage and OT Systems

$73.8 million David L. Tippin Water Treatment Facility Master Plan Improvements project in Tampa, FL requires six low voltage and operational technology systems, creating an estimated $2.5 million opportunity for contractors in the Florida water-utility market.

Project Overview

Capital project records published by the City of Tampa Water Department show a $73.8 million Master Plan Improvements design-build project at the David L. Tippin Water Treatment Facility (DLTWTF), located at 7125 N. 30th Street in Tampa. DLTWTF is the city''s primary drinking water plant, producing roughly 80 million gallons of potable water per day for Tampa''s service area.

According to the master plan documentation, the project will optimize facility performance, improve treated water quality, expand water treatment capacity, and execute a prioritized capital improvement program of repair and replacement across the nearly century-old facility. The scope covers infrastructure rehabilitation, replacement of deteriorating equipment, new operational technology, and integration with the broader Tampa Water enterprise SCADA platform.

The Master Plan Improvements work is moving in parallel with two other major DLTWTF programs that LV contractors should be tracking. As reported by Hoodline in May 2026, Tampa is designing the world''s largest Suspended Ion Exchange (SIX) treatment system at this facility, sized for up to 140 million gallons per day. And in August 2025, the city completed a separate $93 million High Service Pump Station upgrade that installed eight new 900-horsepower pumps. Together those programs represent more than $200 million of active and near-term capital investment at a single drinking-water campus.

Project	DLTWTF Master Plan Improvements (Design-Build)
Location	7125 N. 30th Street, Tampa, FL
Total Value	$73.8 million (Master Plan tranche only)
Adjacent Capital Programs	$93M High Service Pump Station (completed Aug 2025) + SIX expansion (sized to 140 MGD)
Project Type	Drinking Water Utility / Operational Technology
Status	Active capital project
LV Score	8/10
Source	Tampa Capital Projects + RFQ 20-C-00008

Key Players

This is a publicly-owned utility project led by Tampa Water with design-build procurement. Carollo Engineers is the consulting engineer of record on the broader DLTWTF program, including the SIX pilot that informs the Master Plan technology selection.

Role	Company	Details
Owner / Operator	City of Tampa Water Department	Municipal water utility serving roughly 670,000 customers across Tampa. DLTWTF produces the majority of the city''s drinking water.
Design-Build Procurement	City of Tampa Procurement / RFQ 20-C-00008	Issued as a design-build RFQ. Selected D-B team handles design, construction, and OT/SCADA integration as a single contract.
Consulting Engineer (Program)	Carollo Engineers	National water/wastewater engineering specialist. Carollo''s pilot of the Suspended Ion Exchange (SIX) technology at DLTWTF is informing the broader master plan technology decisions.
Recent Adjacent Build	Tampa Water (in-house program management)	Completed the $93M High Service Pump Station in August 2025 — eight 900-HP pumps with associated VFD controls, instrumentation, and SCADA integration. Sets the OT/LV precedent for the Master Plan tranche.

Low Voltage and OT Systems Breakdown

Water-treatment work sits at the seam between traditional LV and operational technology. Most of the contract value flows through SCADA, instrumentation, and process control — but the project also carries the security, communications, and life-safety scope you''d expect on any major industrial campus. The six systems flagged on this permit cover both halves of that scope.

System	Category	Scope Description	Complexity
SCADA	Operational Technology	Plant-wide SCADA upgrade or extension, tied into the Tampa Water enterprise platform. Modicon / Allen-Bradley / Schneider PLCs with redundant HMI servers, historian, and treatment-process control logic.	High
Structured Cabling	Data/Voice	Fiber backbone across the 100-acre campus connecting process areas, control rooms, admin, and remote pump/dosing stations. Cat6A in occupied buildings. Hardened outside-plant cabling for instrumentation.	Medium
Access Control	Security	Critical-infrastructure access control across all perimeter gates, process buildings, control rooms, chemical-storage areas, and SCADA cabinets. Higher than commercial-grade specs due to AWIA / EPA critical-infrastructure rules.	High
CCTV / Video Surveillance	Security	IP cameras across perimeter, process areas, chemical dosing, and pump stations. Critical-infrastructure retention spec. PoE+ and outside-plant hardening for outdoor/wet locations.	Medium
Fire Alarm	Life Safety	Addressable system covering admin, electrical buildings, chemical buildings, and control rooms. NFPA 72 plus NFPA 820 considerations for water/wastewater spaces with hazardous classification.	High
DAS	Wireless	In-building coverage for operations and emergency-response radio across hardened concrete process structures where carrier macro signal struggles to penetrate. Public-safety BDA likely required by Tampa AHJ.	Medium

Process instrumentation — flow, level, pressure, pH, turbidity, residual chlorine, ORP, conductivity — represents the most concentrated dollar density on this project. A water-utility integrator with prior Tampa Water (or comparable Florida utility) experience holds a significant bidding advantage.

Estimated Low Voltage and OT Value

Using water-utility benchmarks weighted toward OT and SCADA scope, the combined LV/OT opportunity on this Master Plan tranche lands at approximately $2.5 million. Drinking-water plants typically run 2-4% of construction value in LV/OT, with the SCADA and instrumentation layer dominating that spend.

Total Project Value	$73,814,773
Estimated LV/OT Percentage	3% (utility/water midpoint)
System Count Multiplier	1.15x (6 systems)
Estimated LV/OT Contract Value	~$2.5 million

A reasonable split for water-utility scope of this size: SCADA and instrumentation together absorb 55-65% of the LV/OT budget, structured cabling another 15-20%, with security (access control, CCTV), fire alarm, and DAS sharing the balance. This is design-build work, so the integrator that wins the team selection on the SCADA + instrumentation package effectively prices and executes the full LV/OT scope rather than bidding it as a discrete trade.

Skills and Certifications Required

Water-utility work is one of the most certification-heavy verticals in LV/OT contracting. The combination of process control, critical-infrastructure security mandates, and AWIA risk-and-resilience requirements creates a specialized labor pool.

System	Key Certifications	Critical Skills
SCADA / Process Control	ISA CAP, manufacturer (Allen-Bradley, Modicon, Schneider, Inductive Automation Ignition)	PLC programming, HMI development, historian configuration, control-narrative authoring, plant-process knowledge, OT cybersecurity (IEC 62443)
Instrumentation	ISA Certified Control Systems Technician (CCST), manufacturer training	Flow / level / pressure / pH / turbidity / chlorine residual installation and calibration, loop checks, P&ID literacy
Structured Cabling	BICSI INSTC, BICSI INSTF, RCDD (design)	Outside-plant fiber, industrial cabling, harsh-environment terminations, MDF/IDF design across a 100-acre campus
Fire Alarm	NICET Fire Alarm Level II+, FL fire alarm license	NFPA 72, NFPA 820 (water/wastewater hazardous classifications), addressable device install, AHJ coordination with City of Tampa
Access Control / CCTV	Manufacturer (Lenel, Genetec, Axis), FL low voltage license	AWIA / EPA critical-infrastructure spec compliance, perimeter detection integration, outdoor hardening, IP networking

The defining skill on this project is the OT integrator who can run SCADA design and commissioning under design-build delivery. ISA-certified controls techs are the scarce labor pool nationwide, and the Tampa-area utility-OT bench is small. Contractors who can self-perform or partner on the SCADA scope will out-bid pure-play LV contractors on this work. Florida contractors should verify their state low voltage and fire alarm licenses, plus any required water/wastewater operator certifications relevant to plant-side access.

Market Signal

Tampa is in the middle of a sustained, multi-program modernization of its primary drinking-water plant — and the signal for LV/OT contractors is that this is not a one-time award. The Master Plan Improvements tranche is layered on top of a recently-completed $93M pump station and a separately-procured SIX expansion that, if built as currently sized, will be the largest deployment of that technology anywhere in the world. Cumulatively that is well over $200 million of capital flowing through one drinking-water campus in Tampa over a five-year window.

This builds on the broader picture LVN Signal has been tracking in Tampa. Last week we profiled the $115 million Howard F. Curren Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant Sludge Digester Overhaul — a separate but parallel Tampa Water utility program on the wastewater side. Two simultaneous capital programs of that scale at one municipal utility, with shared OT/SCADA standards and shared engineering benches, point to a Florida water sector that is in a generational re-investment cycle.

For Florida and Sunbelt water-utility integrators, the strategic play is clear: pursue Tampa Water as a multi-year client, get on the design-build short list while the Master Plan is in procurement, and use the SCADA/instrumentation work here as the reference account for the next wave of utility upgrades coming across the I-4 corridor and Florida''s Gulf Coast. The technology that gets selected at DLTWTF — particularly SIX, which has minimal precedent in North America at this scale — will influence procurement decisions at peer utilities across the Southeast for years.

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