The Komfort Consortium has been selected for the competitive dialogue phase of the European Tender for the PPP Project Kromhout Kazerne in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Komfort is a consortium of  Ballast Nedam, Strukton, John Laing, ISS, Karres and Brands, and Meyer and Van Schooten architects.

The project includes the housing of the staff of the Commando Landstrijdkrachten, who are currently based in various locations. The Secretary of Defence has decided to house the staff of the Commando Landstrijdkrachten in one central location, the Kromhout Kazerne in Utrecht, together with other regional departments of the Ministry of  Defence. The project will provide housing and facilities for a total of 2000 staff members of the Ministry of Defence. The area to be developed is about 19 hectare.

This will be the first project from the Ministry of Defence that will be contracted as to a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), namely a Design, Build, Finance, Maintain and Operate (DBFMO) contract. The expectation is that the total life cycle costs of the new facility will be less, since all services (design, built, maintain and facility management services) will be developed, optimised and carried out by a single party. The contract has a span of 27 years.

This PPP-project will be tendered in accordance with the competitive dialogue procurement framework. The objective of this approach is to allow the market parties to include innovative solutions in  their submissions and to enter into a dialogue with the tender authority.

In the coming round 5 selected parties will submit a concept plan, after which 3 parties will be selected to proceed to the dialogue stage. According to the current time table, final tenders will be submitted in January 2008, preferred bidder selection being expected in March 2008. The concession will  be granted to the party presenting the economically most favourable submission.