Saudi Arabia’s State Properties General Authority (SPGA), in collaboration with the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP (NCP), has invited expressions of interest from firms to transform the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organisation (SASO) headquarters site in Riyadh’s Al-Muhammadiyah area into a mixed-use district

The notice was issued on 12 April, with a bid submission deadline of 26 April

The public-private partnership (PPP) scheme, named the ‘Quality Valley Riyadh’ project, will be developed on a design, build, finance, operate, maintain and transfer basis.The project comprises commercial offices, a four-star hotel and retail facilities.The contract term is 32 years, in addition to a three-year construction period.The project site spans about 191,000 square metres.

UK-based PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), US-based engineering firm Jacobs and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nowaisser & Al-Suwaylimi are the project advisers.In October last year, NCP highlighted the scale and diversity of opportunities in the kingdom’s PPP pipeline.“At the moment, we have around 200 projects in the pipeline with a total value of roughly $190bn,” Salman Badr, executive vice president – infrastructure advisory, NCP, said during a MEED webinar.

The projects are spread across 17 sectors. “We have a very sizeable programme, and it reflects the breadth of the kingdom’s transformation agenda,” he said.NCP was established in 2017. It serves as the central authority and catalyst for designing and implementing privatisation and PPP projects across the kingdom.