Kirklees Cultural Heart Venue Operator Procurement

Tender description

The Council is seeking to procure, through a competitive dialogue process, an experienced and qualified commercial operator to manage a new venue being developed by the Council as part of its Huddersfield Cultural Heart programme. The Cultural Heart programme is a key Council-led regeneration scheme in Huddersfield Town Centre. This is part of a wider blueprint for Huddersfield Town Centre to create: • A vibrant culture, art, leisure and nightlife offer; • thriving businesses; • a great place to live; and • improved access and enhanced public spaces. Lot 1: The Council's initial preferred deal structure is a long-term lease arrangement though other operating models will be considered as part of the competitive dialogue process. This is an exciting opportunity for an organisation to partner with the Council. Through this procurement, the Council is seeking to: • Procure a long-term operating partner for the new venue (c.25 years, though term to be confirmed through the procurement process) to: o to contribute to the venue fit-out and then the long-term operation of the facility o enter into a Fully Repairing and Insuring (FRI) lease basis (this is the initial intention though the Council will consider alternatives as part of the procurement process); and o potentially programme the outdoor event space. At this stage, the above list of services is indicative only and contains the broad categorisation of services rather than particulars. Bidders should assume that the services actually required will broadly be within the scope of services listed above but will also include extensions to related or ancillary services within each categorisation. The actual scope of services required may also be narrower than that set out above. Similarly, while the initial estimated term of the arrangement is expected to be 25 years, the actual period will be confirmed during the procurement process. The procurement is intended to cover the scope of the arrangement as set out in this notice and the accompanying procurement documents. Please also note that the estimated contract value is based on the venue turnover across the maximum contract term. The final value will depend on the scope of the final services required and bidders should presume that this value will cover the services listed and those ancillary to the principal services required on a project of a comparable scale (including any extensions of scope set out in this notice). To help to ensure that sufficient interest in the contract will be generated, the services being procured will not be divided into separate lots. Interested bidders should note that there will be additional procurements for operation of other facilities as part of the Cultural Heart programme and bidding for this contract will not exclude a bidder (including the successful bidder from this procurement) from those subsequent procurement processes, which will be determined by application of evaluation criteria set out in the procurement documents related to those processes.