Court reinstates award of Evans Building tender to Valletta Luxury Projects
Public contracts review board has scrapped the award in March
A court has overturned an order to reevaluate a €300 million Evans Building tender and reinstated Valletta Luxury Projects as the winning bidder.
The award of the tender to VLP to convert the building into a luxury hotel was scrapped in March by the Public Contracts Review Board (PCRB).
It found that VLP, a consortium between Eden Leisure Group and Mark Weingard’s Benny Limited, had been allowed by the evaluation committee to modify its bid after the submission period.
In its financial bid form, VLP indicated a yearly concession fee of €1.2 million, which amounted to €78 million over the 65-year contract period.
Due to a formatting error, the grand total for the bid was mistakenly listed at €1.2 million.
When adjudicating the competing bids, the evaluation committee asked VLP to “correct” the €1.2 million bid, stating to the contract review board that it would have been “dumb and passive” not to accept the €78 million offer.
Competing bidders argued that the evaluation committee had unlawfully changed the substance of VLP’s offers after the submissions period.
The appeals court rejected this argument, saying that the €1.2 million entry was clearly an obvious mistake, since the rest of the tender documents showed that VLP was offering €1.2 million a year, not for the whole term.
It said the correction did not amount to a new bid, but merely confirmed what was already evident from the file.
As a result, the appeals court, led by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, overturned the PCRB’s decision and confirmed the award of the concession to Valletta Luxury Projects.
The concession covers the regeneration, design, management, operation, maintenance, and eventual hand back of the Evans Building in Valletta as a “superior quality tourism accommodation establishment”.
The Evans Building, located near Fort St Elmo at the tip of Valletta is regarded as a prime site for tourism.
It was originally built in 1952 to serve as university laboratories. The site is some 3,327 square metres large with a four-storey building that has a built-up footprint of 1,080 square metres per floor.
It also includes the remains of the Nibbia Chapel, the Chapel of the Bones and the Anatomical Theatre.
Valletta residents have repeatedly campaigned to turn Evans Building into a home for the elderly, or be utilised for some other civic purpose, as long as it remains for the use of the people.