During the Awards night of the Public Private Finance Award on May 22nd 2007, Safire B.V. - a consortium comprising Strukton, ABN AMRO, Burgers Ergon, GTI and ISS - has been nominated for the project PPP Renovation Dutch Ministry of Finance. The project was adjudged to be in the top three of best European projects in the category ‘Best European project to sign’. The award winning project was ‘Development and Operation of International Airports at Larnaca and Pafos’ from Cyprus.

The aim of the PPF Awards is to promote best practices and recognise innovation and excellence. The category ‘Best project to sign’ recognises schemes in the continent of Europe that best demonstrate: effective risk assessment and transfer, efficiency in achieving financial close, design quality and sustainability, flexibility and innovation. The project PPP Renovation Ministry of Finance was nominated together with the Greek project ‘Ionian Road Concession’ and the award winning project. In 22 categories hundreds of projects applied. Forty projects were shortlisted.

Dick Spinder, Director Safire: “We are very proud to belong to the best European projects. Of course we would like to have won the award, but we are very happy with this nomination. We consider this as an international appreciation for our vision and integrated approach.” Safire has won the Dutch Construction Award and the Public Award in the category ‘integrated design and construction’ earlier this year.

This project is the first PPP project for government office buildings in The Netherlands. It comprises the renovation and remodelling of the existing 66,000 m2 building, including management and maintenance of the premises for a period of 25 years. Jointly with the Government Buildings Agency, the Ministry of Finance has designated the renovation of the Ministry of Finance building in The Hague as a pilot project for future contracts for publicly owned buildings. The result of this PPP approach is a high quality and cost saving solution. An estimated saving of 15% was achieved compared to conventional tendering. 

The success of the tender is seen to be due to the effective cooperation between the Ministry of Finance, Government Buildings Agency and Safire. The Client took into account not only the price, but also the qualitative criteria. This made a life-cycle approach possible. All parties involved worked together as an integrated team on the design and pricing. It was not the building that was put central, but the future user. By this approach, innovative and inventive solutions could be developed. The construction renovation of the ministry of Finance started early 2007. It is expected that the refurbished premises will be inaugurated at the end of 2008.