Two bids submitted for renovation of Ljubljana train station

According to Saturday's report by the daily Dnevnik, the lowest bid for the upgrade of the train station, including the construction of an overpass and a new station hall, is worth EUR 260.8 million, while the Infrastructure Directorate valued it at EUR 167 million when the call was published.

The lower bid was submitted by a joint venue featuring in-house builder SŽ - Železniško gradbeno podjetje Ljubljana, and construction companies Kolektor Igin, CGP and GH Holding, while a EUR 295.2 million bid was submitted by VOC Celje.

As this was an open call, no price negotiations were foreseen, the paper says. However, if the Directorate concludes that both bids are too high, it has the option of terminating the public call without selecting a contractor and of opening a new negotiated procedure without prior publication of a call.

In the latter case, it could invite both bidders, in case they meet all the conditions, to a new tender procedure and negotiate with them in one or more rounds. Alternatively, the Directorate could decide to repeat the procedure, Dnevnik says.

The upgrade of the train station is part of one the biggest infrastructure projects in the country, the Ljubljana Passenger Centre, which will also replace the old bus station. The project has seen several aborted attempts at securing investors and execution in the past.

In October last year, Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković told the press that the entire public-private investment, featuring a Hungarian private investor owned by the Hungarian OTP bank, would cost around a billion euro and that construction is to be largely completed by the end of 2025.