The construction of the new building of the Stradins Hospital will cost almost twice as much! 0 9

The state joint-stock company "Valsts nekustamie īpašumi" (VNĪ) may, at best, conclude a contract for the construction of building A2 of the Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital (PSKUS) in February. The contract amount is expected to be at least 100 million euros. This means that in the best-case scenario, the cost of constructing the building will be almost twice as much as originally planned in 2020, reports the Latvian Television program "de facto".

If initially, a total of 88 million euros was planned for all construction work, now at least one hundred million euros is needed just to complete it. This is despite the fact that the facade is already finished and most of the engineering communications are in place. In addition to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine initiated by Russia, and inflation, the price has increased due to risk. "If you, as a builder, take over a project that was previously constructed by another contractor, of course, you take into account additional risks because you have to assume responsibility for the entire volume later," says Elena Gavrilova, a board member of VNĪ.

Currently, approximately 62 million euros have been spent on construction. Of these, 55 million, as reported by the Stradins Hospital, have been paid to the company Velve, while seven million have been invested in urgent works. This leads to the conclusion that, provided everything goes smoothly from now on, the construction of the hospital building A2 will cost more than 163 million euros.

VNĪ will sign a "design-build" contract with the winner of the procurement. This largely implies that the developer takes full responsibility for everything — for the construction project, construction work, and determining the volumes. The most important task for the new developer will be to deal with the mold on the walls. This means that almost all mold-affected areas will need to be assessed and dismantled.

The dispute between the hospital and the previous contractor, the company Velve, regarding the recovery of more than one million euros and the termination of the contract is still in the economic court.