Canberra’s struggling commercial property market has been dealt another blow with the Customs service placing its search for a giant new building under “review”.
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Several large property players believe the project is finished and are angered after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars tendering to build Customs' new home.
The building of 22,000 to 24,000 square metres was considered the best hope of a large deal any time soon in the capital’s struggling office market, which is suffering from federal government sector cost-cutting and downsizing.
The Canberra Times revealed last week the Department of Social Service’s 30,000 square metre headquarters will be next door to its present accommodation in Greenway and that the department had agreed to a deal with its landlord Cromwell Property Group to build the offices.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service denied industry rumours that the agency's move was dead in the water and said the agency’s accommodation needs were being reviewed in the wake of the announcement of the merger with the Immigration Department to form the Australian Border Force.
But industry figures have said they believed the move was off or at the very least the scope of the new property requirement would be radically altered.
The belief has caused unhappiness among large property investment companies, some of whom say they have spent up to $500,000 putting together a tender to build the Customs building.
The agency’s leases on its buildings on Constitution Avenue end in 2016.
Customs has three buildings in Civic - two on Constitution Avenue and one on Allara Street - with about 1460 staff spread across the locations.
Customs’ response to inquiries revealed a confused picture.
“The Australian Customs Border Protection Service project has not been discontinued," a spokeswoman said.
“The future accommodation requirements are currently being reviewed by ACBPS, in consultation with DIBP (Immigration), following the announcement by the Minister for DIBP on 9 May about the consolidation of the functions of ACBPS and DIBP…from 1 July 2015.
“This review will determine decisions about the current project.”
“The current Request for Tender is still in progress so information pertaining to current procurement activity is unable to be released,” the spokeswoman said.
“All tenderers have been provided an update on the status of the project.”
Tenderers said on Monday they had heard nothing from Customs or the Finance Department on the status of their bids.
Submitting a tender for a large government office block is expensive and time-consuming, calling for the involvement of architects, engineers, builders, environmental specialists, accountant, lawyers and dozens of other specialists.