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Biel/Bienne campus and Bern campus: substantial potential savings identified
09.02.2021 An extensive review of the Biel/Bienne campus project revealed potential savings of between CHF 30 and 45 million. However, supplementary credit totalling tens of millions of francs will still be needed. The findings from Biel have been incorporated into the project planning for the Bern campus, where optimisations could cut costs by CHF 20 to 24 million.
In September 2019, the Canton of Bern’s Office for Land and Buildings (AGG) suspended the tendering process to find a general contractor for Bern University of Applied Sciences’ Biel/Bienne campus project. The submissions significantly exceeded the approved credit limit. An expert’s report issued on behalf of the Canton of Bern’s Department of Public Works and Transport (BVD) showed that a variety of factors had led to the cost divergence. The BVD took advantage of the ‘down time’ arising from the ongoing legal situation (compulsory purchase, building regulations and planning permission) to ‘relaunch’ the Biel/Bienne campus project. In the meantime, the insight gained over the past 10 months of work on the Biel campus has been used to optimise BFH’s Bern campus and has helped benefit other large-scale construction projects in the canton.
For further details, see the press release issued by the Canton of Bern.
