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New Biozentrum building: handover to the University of Basel planned for the fourth quarter of 2020
This afternoon, the governments of the supporting cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft gave an update on the new Biozentrum building. Due to a number of exceptional events, the complexity of construction and inadequate performance by the contracted companies, the overall project costs are expected to be around CHF 70 to 110 million greater than originally planned.
10 December 2019
As things stand at present, the handover of the new building to the University of Basel will be pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2020. The planned project costs (CHF 337.8 million) are also likely to be exceeded by around 21% to 33%. The supporting cantons already announced delays and extra costs for the new Biozentrum building back in September 2018. After processing and resolving the claims communicated at the time, it became clear that these would have a greater impact on costs and scheduling than previously assumed.
The construction work is largely complete and various inspections have already been carried out. Putting the facilities into operation is currently the top priority; the building automation has proven to be the biggest challenge to this.
The construction of the new Biozentrum building is the responsibility of the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, who are the contracting authorities. The supporting cantons have arranged for the University of Basel to provide the required financial resources to settle the outstanding invoices in the form of pre-financing. The University of Basel has agreed to this pre-financing solution, as the supporting cantons have confirmed that they will reimburse this.
Further information
Matthias Geering, University of Basel, Head of Communications & Marketing, tel: +41 61 207 35 75, mobile: +41 79 269 70 71, email: matthias.geering@unibas.ch
