Innovation District Pump Station Design

To accommodate significant residential, commercial, and institutional growth in the North Potomac Yard area, wastewater infrastructure in the city of Alexandria needed to be expanded. The area, which includes Virginia Tech’s new Innovation Campus, will be a hub for technology, education, and environmentally sustainable infrastructure that will minimize the area’s carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuels.

A new sewage pumping station was essential to managing and transporting wastewater from North Potomac Yard to the Alexandria Renew Enterprises (AlexRenew) wastewater treatment plant, a key player in the region’s water management system. But this wouldn’t be any ordinary pumping station. After all, it would be located in the area’s Innovation District. Our team rose to the challenge of designing a station that met rigorous technical and regulatory standards while seamlessly integrating into the urban landscape and supporting the city’s sustainable infrastructure investment commitment.

Our team was retained by JBG Smith, the site’s developer, to design and oversee the construction of the Innovation District Pump Station. As the engineer of record, our multidisciplinary team completed the sewage pumping station design, ensuring full compliance with Hydraulic Institute standards, Virginia sewage collection and treatment regulations, and AlexRenew guidelines.

Through close collaboration with Virginia Tech, JBG Smith, the city of Alexandria, AlexRenew, the Virginia Department of Health, Clark Water, Christopher Consultants (now IMEG), and Hickok Cole, we completed the pump station design and construction on schedule and on budget.

The Innovation District Pump Station, designed with a capacity of approximately 6 million gallons per day (MGD), incorporates advanced systems like a self-cleaning wet well—the first of its kind for AlexRenew, a dry well with two 90-horsepower dry pit submersible pumps, and an advanced odor control system in an above-ground structure.

Additionally, the station includes a bridge crane, access hatches, and HVAC systems to facilitate efficient operations and maintenance while ensuring a safe environment. The station’s comprehensive electrical, mechanical, and process control systems support its functionality and reliability, and a detailed commissioning plan supports its instrumentation and control elements, reducing the environmental impact through efficient resource management. We also provided construction management and inspection services and prepared the pump station’s operations and maintenance manual.

The pump station was future-proofed to handle the development’s eventual build-out, with variable-speed pump drives to manage initial lower flows during Phase I. The station discharges wastewater through a new force main along Potomac Avenue, ultimately connecting to the AlexRenew treatment plant.

In collaboration with Hickok Cole, the project architects, we designed a structure that complements the surrounding development and features a green roof, architectural detailing, and a pedestrian plaza with green space. Aligned with the city of Alexandria’s goals for sustainable development and green infrastructure, we registered the project under the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision Verification program, coordinating the application process and managing third-party certification.