Non-residential property services

Tender description

The Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC — http://www.biorenewables.org/), a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of York, is seeking a delivery partner to design, build and jointly operate a facility to support bio-based small and medium sized enterprises to innovate and grow. The facility will provide accommodation, access to technical facilities as well as one to one innovation advice and support to in excess of 20 businesses over the initial 3-year period of the project. Innovation advice and support and access to technical equipment and facilities will be provided by the BDC — for this reason, the facility will need to be located close to the main BDC premises east of York. The project will be part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/england-2014-to-2020-european-structural-and-investment-funds). The role of the delivery partner will be to design and build the facility and to subsequently work with the BDC to operate the facility over an economic lifetime expected to extend up to 25 years. The successful bidder/delivery partner will be required to meet certain ERDF terms and conditions (e.g. in relation to financial expenditure and audit requirements) as set out in the terms of the funding agreement to be concluded between the BDC and the managing authority for ERDF in England — the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The BDC would expect all interested parties to meet the following basic criteria: • Immediate access to land capable of accommodating the initial development as well as the potential for future expansion — site must be free from contaminants, redundant infrastructure, etc, or immediate access to a suitable existing building that could be re-purposed for this requirement. • Ownership of, or an exclusive lease option on, the proposed site. • Ability to contribute GBP 2 million cash to the project to be used as eligible match funding against the proposed ERDF funding application. • An established track record in the operation and ongoing maintenance of a business/science park environment. • Willingness to develop a scheme of works capable of meeting BREEAM ‘Very Good’ to ‘Excellent’ standard at risk in order to meet ERDF application criteria. Timescales will be driven by the ERDF application process and it is expected that the application, to be submitted by the end of July 2020, will include a nominated delivery partner and designs to at least RIBA Stage 1, with designs developed to RIBA Stage 3 post application but prior to award of funding. Construction is expected to be completed by mid to late 2022. At this stage, the BDC wishes to explore the market to establish the level of capability and interest in this opportunity. Accordingly, the BDC invites suitable development partners to provide an outline summary of their interest, their capabilities and their initial thoughts on feasibility of the requirement and potential solutions. The outline summary can be in any format but no more than 6 pages and must be submitted via the University of York eTendering portal https://in-tendhost.co.uk/york/aspx/Home by 12.00 on 26 June 2020.