Alberta keeps three for schools PPP

The Alberta, Canada government has narrowed its list of contenders to revitalise over a dozen schools via a public-private partnership (PPP) to three teams.

The PPP contract is part of larger government pledge to invest C$550 million (€404 million; $540 million) to build, replace or upgrade a group of nearly three dozen Alberta schools. Although these projects are at various stages of development, the programme should ultimately be completed in time for the 2014 academic year.

In this context, the PPP represents the third such public and private effort for school projects in Alberta, according to a government spokesperson, and includes a group of 13 schools in the Central Alberta region. Originally, five teams responded to the government’s October Request for Qualifications, with the following three being shortlisted:

– ABC Schools Group (Hochtief, Concert Infrastructure, Clark Builders, Turner Construction Company, Stantec Consulting and Ainsworth).

– Alberta Consortium for Education (EllisDon, Balfour Beatty, S2 Architecture, ONPA Architects, Parsons Brinckerhoff Halsall, Hemisphere Engineering, O2 Planning + Design, Charter Builders, GDI Integrated Facility Services and National Bank Financial Markets).

– Build to Learn3 (Gracorp Capital Advisors, Bird, Graham Design Builder, Barr Ryder Architects and Interior Designers, Honeywell Limited and Scotia Capital).

The winning consortium is expected to be named by the end of the third quarter of 2012, and will contribute to financing, designing and building the education sites.  Alberta has been actively awarding PPP-structured deals of late across the water and transportation sectors.