Originally, the university had already wanted to present the plans for the new construction at Zernike. But they haven’t managed to do that yet. ‘The contractor market situation in the entire country is under pressure. That’s affecting us as well’, says communication adviser Jeroen de Lezenne Coulander with the RUG’s Property and Investments Projects department.
Last year, the tender process was cancelled in July when it turned out that no one was willing to build the Feringa Building at the price the university had in mind. Since then, the RUG has been working hard on a new, slightly more austere, plan.
Job openings
The actual execution could still be a problem. ‘The market is being dictated by construction supervisors’, says De Lezenne Coulander. ‘If you want to hire a bricklayer or a contractor, it takes forever. There is just so much demand for them. But we worked hard to find ways to speed up the entire building process.’
The currently more than 14,000 construction job openings is the largest number the field has seen since 2008.
It looks like the planned completion date of 2021 will not be reached. During the Science and Engineering faculty council meeting, the faculty board named 2023 as the new completion date. But according to spokesperson Jorien Bakker, that’s a bit premature. ‘The tender process is ongoing. Only when that is done will we know whether the building will be finished in 2021 or 2023.’
This article has been corrected. The tender of the Feringa Building has not been delayed by the saturation of the construction market, as mentioned earlier. It has been hamperd by it.