Supporting Critical Water Infrastructure Projects with OneOffice
Saint Paul Regional Water Services (SPRWS) manages the water infrastructure serving Saint Paul and surrounding communities. From water main improvements to a major lead service line replacement initiative, the utility oversees a significant portfolio of projects focused on protecting water quality and maintaining reliable service. To help manage this work, SPRWS uses RTVision’s OneOffice platform for Project and Construction Management. SPRWS adopted OneOffice after seeing the benefits of the platform within the City of Saint Paul Public Works Department, which began using OneOffice following a successful construction project trial.
Supporting Lead Free SPRWS
One of SPRWS’s largest initiatives is Lead Free SPRWS, a 10-year program to replace lead water service lines throughout its service area at no cost to participating property owners. The scale of the program is significant. SPRWS serves approximately 96,000 properties, with about 17,000 identified as having lead service lines and 4,500 have a service line that is of unknown material. Since 2022, approximately 6,500 lead service lines have been replaced, with more than 1,000 additional replacements planned for 2027.
Managing a program of this size involves much more than tracking construction schedules. Individual neighborhood projects can include hundreds of properties and require coordination among SPRWS staff, contractors, inspectors, property owners, consultants, and other stakeholders. At the same time, project teams need to manage costs, quantities, contracts, field activity, documentation, changes, and overall progress. OneOffice brings that project information together in one place, giving SPRWS a consistent way to manage construction projects and maintain the records associated with the work. This reduces reliance on disconnected spreadsheets, emails, documents, and project files while making information easier for teams to access throughout project delivery.
Managing a Major Public Investment
Lead Free SPRWS also represents a significant investment in clean drinking water infrastructure. SPRWS estimates approximately $250 million in additional investment will be needed to remove the remaining lead service lines across its service area. Federal, state, and local funding are helping make that work possible. The City of Saint Paul committed $16 million in American Rescue Plan funding in 2022 and 2023, while SPRWS has also received funding associated with the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act through the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority.
With multiple funding sources comes an increased need to track how dollars are allocated and spent. OneOffice helps SPRWS coordinate funding sources and maintain clear, auditable project and cost records to support funding requirements throughout project delivery. This connection between funding and project execution is especially important for large infrastructure programs. Securing funding is only the beginning; agencies also need to turn those dollars into completed projects while maintaining the documentation needed to demonstrate how public funds were used.
Connecting Project Teams and Information
Water infrastructure projects generate a significant amount of information in both the office and the field. OneOffice provides a common platform for managing project status, contracts, costs, quantities, field records, photos, correspondence, changes, and other construction documentation.
Watermain work is all unit prices — feet of pipe, hydrants, valves, services — and we used to track and transcribe those quantities multiple ways before a pay estimate was done. With OneOffice the inspector’s daily journal is the source: they log the day’s work, tag photos to the location, and those quantities flow straight through to the pay estimate and the funding splits. It allows us to track quantity discrepancies in real time and always know where our budget stands.”
-St. Paul Regional Water Services, Assistant Engineering Manager
Keeping this information connected to the project gives staff a clearer picture of work in progress and creates an organized history once construction is complete. That history becomes increasingly valuable for a long-term initiative like Lead Free SPRWS. Each construction season brings new projects and hundreds of additional service line replacements. Maintaining those records in a centralized system gives SPRWS information that can continue supporting future planning, maintenance, reporting, and infrastructure decisions.
Technology Supporting an Important Mission
The goal of Lead Free SPRWS is ambitious: remove lead service lines throughout the utility’s service area and replace them with safe, modern infrastructure. Reaching that goal requires years of investment, construction, and coordination. OneOffice works behind the scenes to help SPRWS manage the projects, funding, documentation, and information needed to keep that work moving forward.
By connecting project teams and information in one place, OneOffice helps SPRWS turn a large-scale clean drinking water initiative into thousands of completed infrastructure improvements for the communities it serves.