ORANGE CITY, Fla. — A major upgrade to Orange City’s stormwater system is moving toward construction, with plans to move water from Mill Lake and Industrial Drive to the city’s borrow pit along West French Avenue.
But how much pumping power the project will ultimately deliver remains a question of funding.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Public Works Director Ben Bartlett said design and permitting for the Mill Lake & Industrial Park Basin stormwater project were completed this month. Construction is expected to start in early 2027 after bidding.
A new route for stormwater
The project would establish a backbone stormwater system serving Mill Lake, Industrial Drive and potentially other drainage basins.
One important distinction for residents: Water from Industrial Drive would not be pumped into Mill Lake. Instead, the Industrial Drive system would connect directly to the new stormwater pump station at Mill Lake, sending the water onward to the borrow pit.
The proposed upgrade would represent a substantial increase over the existing station, which can pump approximately 1.5 cubic feet per second.
At full capacity, the new station would pump up to 50 cubic feet per second—about 22,422 gallons per minute, or more than 33 times the current pumping capacity.
Three options, three price tags
The project will go to bid with three construction options under consideration:
- $26.58 million for a system capable of pumping 50 cubic feet per second.
- $22.34 million for a system capable of pumping 35 cubic feet per second.
- $19.37 million for a system capable of pumping 25 cubic feet per second.
The current project budget is $18.3 million, including $15.2 million through Volusia County’s Transform386 program.
That leaves even the smallest option approximately $1.07 million above the available budget. The full-capacity option would require approximately $8.28 million beyond current funding.
Those figures reflect the estimates presented in the update, not final construction bids.
Bids will help determine what gets built
With design and permitting complete, bidding is the next major step.
The bids, along with awarded grants and available funding, will determine the project’s final scope and cost. For residents following the work, the next milestone is not simply when construction begins—but which version of the stormwater system the available dollars will support.
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