Contract awarded for $700 million waste water plant

A $700 million waste water treatment plant is a step closer to being built on the North Shore.

Metro Vancouver has awarded the contract to design and build the facility to a company called ADAPT Consortium.

The Lions Gate secondary waste water treatment plant, which will be built on West First Street near Philip Avenue in North Vancouver, will replace the existing plant beneath the Lions Gate Bridge.

The current facility only does primary treatment of waste water.

"The new plant is extremely well thought out with a clean, architectural form that connects with the industrial scale of the neighbourhood," said Darrell Mussatto, the chair of Metro Vancouver's utilities committee.

"The design is such that many people won't even know that it is a waste water treatment plant. Its facade accentuates the North Shore coastline and the waters of Burrard Inlet."

Construction on the new plant, which will serve about 200,000 people who live on the North Shore, is expected to start in the spring and should be completed by the end of 2020.

The older facility will be decommissioned in 2021.