Development of non-residential real estate

Tender description

OPS9333 The British Library Development Partner Procurement This is a call for a market sounding exercise prior to the possible placement of an OJEU Notice calling for a Procurement. We expect to place the OJEU Notice during 2016 but it may differ significantly from the topics raised here: there is no guarantee that the OJEU Notice will be placed. The British Library offers a unique opportunity to a commercial development partner to support us in delivering our ambitions for our freehold Boston Spa estate, owned by the British Library Board. The British Library is the UK's national library and 1 of the world's greatest research libraries. The Library has 3 sites. 1 located in the centre of the country at Boston Spa, Wetherby, another in the heart of London's Knowledge Quarter at St Pancras, and the third at Stockton-on-Tees. In the past 10 years, 2 new facilities have been built at the Yorkshire site, which store — and make easily retrievable — vast parts of our collections at the highest possible levels of efficiency. The proposal is the Construction of a high density, automated storage facility increasing the capability of the British Library to offer print collection management, continued access and collaborative shared services for printed collections from cultural, educational and public sector organisations across the UK. The storage capacity would be equivalent to 250 linear kilometres. Our vision for this facility is to have a proportion of the development, within an adjacent traditional construction, for new galleries, learning, and office space. This development will assist in the on-going rationalisation of the Library's end-of-life buildings and allow for the further re-development of the Boston Spa site in alignment with the long term master plan. The British Library is interested in the potential of full private funding for the proposal, or a mixed public/private funding split. There are 3 potential partnership options — Construction only; Construction and operation of the retrieval service; and Construction, retrieval and other logistics. The Library, as well as being a public body, and responsible to the Department for Culture Media and Sport, has charitable status. Therefore, it has statutory and charitable responsibilities as well as duties of public engagement, transparency, and ethical behaviour. Any future contract made with a developer must be compatible with all of these duties and responsibilities: The Library is interested in the market's view of how all these objectives can be met and innovative ways of moving forward for the long-term benefit of the partners. The Library will be interested to hear views on this project and to have non-binding discussions with any interested parties over the next period. Contact with the Library must, in the first instance be through the BRAVO platform as defined in this PIN. We are offering briefing sessions in early March 2016, please advise whether you are interested in attending a session with initial information described in the PIN Briefing Document by 24.2.2016. The formal exercise and response will close on 1.4.2016. We will contact you nearer the time to confirm the closure of the exercise and you will be alerted, by way of your BRAVO registration, when the procurement route is decided.