Five private contractors will battle for a contract, to build and operate the IDF’s new communications center, worth billions of shekels: Minrav Holdings Ltd. (TASE: MNRV) in a joint bid with Electra Power, Ashtrom Properties Ltd. (TASE:ASPR), Azrieli Group Ltd. (TASE: AZRG), Shikun & Binui Holdings Ltd. (TASE: SKBN), and Shapir Engineering.
The Ministry of Defense, which is spearheading the transfer of IDF bases to southern Israeli, will launch the tender process on Thursday; at its conclusion, likely in two years, one of the bidders will be selected to lead the massive undertaking. The NIS 7 billion project will move into IDF Technology Campus all of the Israeli military’s communications units and Southern Command.
The center will be built near the Gav Yam Advanced Technologies Park and Ben-Gurion University.
The IDF Technology campus will encompass nearly 45 acres of land, with structures built on 32 of its acres. Part of the campus will include structures no taller than 8 floors. Its construction is to begin in 2018 and it is expected to open its doors in 2023. When the project is completed, as many as 5,000 soldiers will serve in the new base.
“We have reached the necessary agreements to advance the move and we blocked the main obstacles to the project in terms of budget, transportation, and housing,” said Southern Relocation Administration chief Brigadier-General (res.) Nati Efrati on Wednesday.
According to Efrati, the five groups competing for the contract were vetted by the Ministry of Defense and found to meet the prerequisite conditions for the tender: “Working with the private sector has brought us the leading players in the market, and we needed to assure companies would not drop out during the process. The company awarded the tender handle the financing, planning, construction, and operation of the new campus for a period of 25 years.”
According to Colonel Asher Dvash, responsible for the move of C4i assets, “The plan to build a technology campus in Beersheva represents the largest IT step in IDF history. Beyond the social implications of building the campus in Beersheva, its construction will provide the IDF within a mere few years with technological capabilities that will make it among the most operationally-capable militaries in the Middle East. This move essentially implements the IDF multi-year plan, ‘Gidon’, which focused on technological growth and entry into the cyber era.”
Sources in the security established said Wednesday that a series of recent agreements reached with government authorities enabled the opening of the tender process. The arrangements involved the project’s funding, transportation infrastructure, and reaching an agreement with the Beersheva Municipality over the property taxes that will be paid over the years.
“We have overcome all obstacles which delayed the timetable for this plan, and we will soon turn to the next step in the plan to move the IDF to southern Israel building an intelligence campus in the Shoket junction,” said Efrati.
The IDF and the Ministry of Defense are expected to complete in the coming months the construction of the City of Training Bases in the Negev Junction. The base complex has already opened its doors and currently hosts 6,000 soldiers out of the 10,000 scheduled to serve at the CTB after its completion.
The CBT was built and will be operated by “View to the Negev”, led by Minrav, after the company passed a similar tender process to the one slated to start on Thursday for the tech campus.
The tender process for the communications center represents the second stage of the IDF plan to relocate to southern Israel intended to free up expensive real estate in high-demand areas currently occupied by the military.
The next step, which has been designated as “much more complicated and challenging” by senior security officials, is the establishment of an intelligence campus near the Shoket junction, where up to 14,000 soldiers will serve one day.
“By the end of the year, we will be ready for the intelligence campus tender, and by the beginning of next year we will publish that tender and pass another significant milestone in the plan to transfer IDF bases to the south,” said Efrati on Wednesday.
With the completion of the massive process, some 35,000 soldiers will serve in the new southern IDF bases.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 11, 2016
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