The development of public infrastructure projects in Costa Rica has lagged in recent years. However, there are several important public infrastructure projects that are foreseen to be tendered in the short and medium term.
The Government-City Project is perhaps the most significant of these projects. This Project is very significant for the country, and may represent an attractive opportunity for national and international consulting and construction companies, as well as the many subcontractors that will eventually participate in it. The following is a general description of the Government- City Project:
General description and scope of the Project
The Project will be located in San José, and will consist of at least 5 buildings of between 15 and 21 floors each. These buildings are expected to house commercial premises on the ground level floors, and at least 18 Central Government institutions on the upper floors (among which the following may be highlighted: Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, Ministry of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Public Education).
Benefits of this Project for the country
This Project represents a transcendental benefit for the country for three main reasons:
- It will centralize a large majority of public institutions in the same geographic area. Currently, the entities that make up the Central Government are distributed around different cantons of the Greater Metropolitan Area, which makes it difficult to hold meetings, carry out procedures and obtain information quickly and efficiently, without the need to travel long distances. This Project will facilitate inter-institutional coordination and the quality and ease of attention that citizens receive.
- Improvements in terms of urban mobility and citizen security: The Project will generate efficiencies in terms of public transport by having a specific point that allows centralization of different bus and train routes, which will serve the thousands of users who will work in the Government-City. This will facilitate the work of police surveillance that guarantees citizen security.
- It will generate savings for the Administration with respect to current building leasing expenses.
Financing of the Project
On February 28, the Government announced the approval of a USD $450 million loan with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) to finance the Government-City Project. As such, the budgetary content that allows financing the Project already exists.
In principle, the Project will be carried out under the Build, Own, Lease, Transfer modality (BOLT). This implies that BCIE will buils, operate and maintain the project (tasks that will be executed through tenders), while leasing it to the State, and will transfer it after 25 years.
Phases of the Project
The Project is planned to be developed in three phases:
- Phase I: Consists of the cooperation of BCIE to carry out financial and urban feasibility studies of the Project, as well as the promotion and execution of the international public bidding procedure for the construction works.
- Phase II: Consists of the construction of the complex of at least 5 buildings between 15 and 21 floors. This construction would begin on land owned by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT) in the vicinity of Plaza Víquez (San Jose).
- Phase III: Once the construction of the buildings is completed, the operations and personnel of the institutions will be transferred, and the available spaces for commercial uses, will be sold or leased.
International Tender
BCIE will celebrate an international tender for the design, construction and equipment of the real estate development. Subsequently, another tender will be held for the operation and maintenance of the project.
BCIE will be in charge of formalizing the international tender project in the coming months, since the goal is to award the construction in the third quarter of 2023 and begin construction of the works in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Our firm is the local leader in legal counsel on the field of public project development, as supported by the main global rankings in this area. For more information about this Project, or about other projects that are foreseeable in the medium term, please do not hesitate to direct your questions to our partner in the Public Projects and Infrastructure area, Claudio Donato at the email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
