Plano City Council approved nearly $1.1 million in contracts last Monday to replace aging cast iron water pipes across four neighborhoods, part of a broader push to modernize infrastructure after what officials described as a rough summer of line breaks. The money covers engineering and design work in Old Shepard Place, plus Prairie Creek, Post Oak and Kimberlea Estates, where crews will eventually swap out more than 24,000 linear feet of decades-old pipe.
The council awarded $495,995 to Cobb, Fendley & Associates, Inc. for preliminary design, final design and construction-related engineering services on the Old Shepard Place Water Rehabilitation Project, cataloged as City Project No. ENG-W-00005, according to Community Impact. That project will replace 11,170 linear feet of 6-inch, 8-inch and 12-inch cast iron pipes, per city documents, and is expected to take roughly a year to complete once construction begins in late 2027. A separate $628,400 contract went to Hazen and Sawyer, P.C. for engineering services in Prairie Creek, Post Oak and Kimberlea Estates, where the city will replace approximately 13,550 linear feet of 6-inch and 8-inch cast iron lines at the northwest corner of Independence Parkway and Parker Road, per the dossier’s city documents. That project isn’t slated to start until early 2028, though work on the Kimberlea additions portion is expected to begin in November, per city data. Hazen and Sawyer previously completed Plano’s Steeplechase Estates water rehabilitation project.
Why Central Plano Keeps Getting Prioritized
Angela Pflanz presented the fiscal year 2026-27 water rehabilitation allocation to council on August 10, and according to the same account, she said the city had quite a few line breaks this summer and that the projects are important for replacing aging infrastructure. A majority of Plano’s remaining cast-iron distribution lines sit in central and east Plano, where the city’s oldest developments are located, while most distribution mains in west Plano are less than 40 years old and were built with PVC, the station’s report notes. Old Shepard Place, situated in central/west Plano, is made up predominantly of mid-1980s homes with mature trees and shifting soil, conditions that push subdivisions from that era toward their 40-to-50-year pipe replacement window, according to Mother Modern Plumbing.
Citywide, Plano maintains roughly 1,450 miles of residential distribution mains, with 70% made of PVC, 17% (about 240 miles) made of cast iron, and 13% made of ductile iron, per the same account. City public works officials estimate cast iron pipes last roughly 50 years, compared with modern PVC pipes that can last up to 100 years and flex more easily in North Texas’s shifting clay soils. That durability gap is central to why the city keeps replacing iron lines: they’re more vulnerable to cracking as soil expands and contracts during dry summers.
What Residents Can Expect Above Ground
Beyond the underground pipe swaps, both approved rehabilitation projects will require concrete pavement repair and installation of ADA-accessible sidewalk ramps along affected roadways and parkways, per city documents. Water funds account for 14% of the Community Investment Program’s overall funding, per city data, and Plano is allocating $11.8 million to water rehabilitation projects for the new fiscal year, which will fund five new water rehabilitation efforts in total…