The water main that broke on Saturday, March 7, flooding six homes along 14 Mile Road and stranding motorists so badly that first responders had to evacuate them, will be torn out and replaced under an $81 million project announced Tuesday, July 21.
The Great Lakes Water Authority will replace three miles of the failing 48-inch pipe beneath 14 Mile Road in Farmington Hills with a larger 54-inch steel main. Construction is scheduled to start in November 2026 and finish in 2028.
For Novi's 67,000 residents, the project addresses a pipe that has ruptured repeatedly since 2017, knocking out water to homes, schools, Henry Ford Providence Hospital, and hundreds of businesses. The March break left Novi without water for roughly 26 hours, longer than any other affected community, according to Novi Mayor Justin Fischer.
A pattern of failures
The concrete pipe, installed in the early 1970s by Interpace Corporation, was designed to last up to 100 years. It has broken multiple times over seven years, including incidents in 2017, 2021, September 2025, and March 2026.
GLWA CEO Suzanne Coffey told the Novi City Council on March 9, that the March break resulted from a "pressure wave" following a power outage caused by severe weather, including tornadoes, that hit Michigan on March 6. The pipe had been inspected in 2019 and 2021 and showed zero defects both times, Coffey said at that meeting.
"There's always breaks and you're not going to hear me give guarantees, but our goal is that this pipe that we see is problematic, it's not gonna be in the system anymore," Coffey said at the July 21 announcement at Farmington Hills City Hall.
What the project includes
The new 54-inch steel pipe carries a 75-year design life. GLWA will also inspect and update three miles of a separate water main running between the Franklin Pump Station on Inkster Road and just east of Farmington Road, and install an acoustic fiber-optic monitoring system inside the pipe to detect leaks and degradation before they become emergencies.
The $81 million is funded through GLWA's capital-improvement fund and a May 19 bond sale that refinanced $860 million in outstanding debt and secured $208 million in new funding.
Traffic disruptions ahead
Coffey said the project will disrupt traffic along 14 Mile Road. GLWA plans to host community meetings before construction begins, though no dates have been announced.
Businesses along 14 Mile have already felt the pain of an earlier emergency repair project still underway from the September 2025 break. Zaid Yalda, part-owner of Maples Bar & Bistro and Maples Golf Club near Walled Lake, said customers cannot reach his restaurant because of cones and construction, and that maintaining staff and paying bills has been "very, very difficult."
GLWA Project Manager Sean Grant said that earlier repair was done so quickly that full road-restoration plans were not in place, causing delays. As of July 21, that road work remained incomplete.
What's next for Novi
Coffey said a separate GLWA project already underway further west on 14 Mile Road should wrap up within weeks and will improve water resiliency for Novi, Commerce Township, Walled Lake, and Wixom. Landscaping from that work is expected in late August or early September 2026.
Novi City Manager Victor Cardenas said the city welcomed the $81 million investment. GLWA said it will announce community meeting dates for the new project in the coming months. Residents can visit glwater.org for updates.
