On 2 November the DBFMO contract with Safire for the PPP project Renovation Ministry of Finance will be signed by Mr Zalm (Minister of Finance) and Mr Winsemius (Department of Housing, Regional Development and the Environment) on behalf of the State of The Netherlands. This project is the first project for government office buildings in The Netherlands that will be built under Public Private Partnership (PPP), the so-called Design, Build, Finance, Maintain and Operate (DBFMO) approach. It comprises the design, renovation and remodelling of the 66,000 m2 building in The Hague, and the management and maintenance of the premises for a period of 25 years, accommodating some 1,750 personnel.

Earlier this year Safire, the consortium comprising ABN AMRO, Burgers Ergon, GTI, ISS and Strukton, was selected as preferred tenderer in the European tender for this project. The contract's net market value is 175 million euros, excluding VAT. The user, the Ministry of Finance, is represented as client by the National Housing and Construction Service.

For this project the State has chosen for Public Private Partnership because a study by the Ministry of Finance showed that a PPP tender would give better value compared to a traditional way of tendering. The advantages are achieved by:

• tendering and contracting the project, from design to financing and 25-year exploitation, to a single private party;
• allowing the tendering parties to come up with innovative and life-cycle efficient solutions.

Further cost optimization is achieved by allocation of risks to the parties that can best control them (State or private party).
The re-construction and renovation of the Ministry of Finance will start early in 2007. It is expected that the renovated premises will be inaugurated at the end of 2008.