Eduardo González
The Contracting Board of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published a call for tenders for the comprehensive maintenance service of the Department’s buildings and general facilities in Madrid for a maximum amount of 4.65 million euros.
To date, this service has been provided by the Sacyr Group, which in May 2021 was awarded two contracts for the comprehensive maintenance of the buildings and facilities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid for a total amount of more than 1.65 million euros. The contract with Sacyr ends on May 10, 2025.
The General Clerk of the Directorate General of the Foreign Service has deemed it appropriate, in order to fulfill its purposes and due to the lack of personnel and own means to carry out the maintenance work at the Ministry’s headquarters in Madrid, to hire a specialized company to carry out said service, providing the necessary means.
Specifically, the tender includes the comprehensive maintenance of the Santa Cruz Palace (both the historic and modern buildings, in Plaza de la Provincia and Calle Salvador, respectively), the Viana Palace (Calle del Duque de Rivas), the Diplomatic School (Paseo de Juan XXIII), the headquarters of ACNUR Spain (located in Calle General Perón and which was ceded by the Ministry based on a headquarters agreement) and a 15,300 square metre plot of land in Calle Pedro Damián where the construction of a new general headquarters for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been planned.
The project in Pedro Damián was finally abandoned in favour of the current headquarters in Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca, and since then the plot has remained deserted, although part of the foundations made in 1994 to house the Ministry can still be seen. The future of the plot still depends on what is decided by Patrimonio del Estado, dependent on the Ministry of Finance.
The new tender, by the way, does not include the maintenance of the headquarters in Marqués de Salamanca, reopened in January 2022 after 18 years closed and ten years of rehabilitation works. On the other hand, the Sacyr contract included, for almost 277,000 euros, the comprehensive maintenance of the Torres Ágora building, which housed the bulk of the Department during that time and which entailed a cost of around 150 million euros in rent alone.
The duration of the new contract will be two years, starting on May 11, 2025, extendable for a maximum of another two years, in a single extension or in several. The deadline for receiving offers or requests to participate expires at 11:59 p.m. on December 27. Unlike the contract with Sacyr, the new award will not be divided into lots.
The base tender budget is estimated at 2,344,595.83 euros, including VAT, but a possible increase to 4,650,438.00 euros is expected, taking into account possible extensions of the contract and the maximum increase foreseen for possible modifications.
