Abu Dhabi Police General Headquarters has invited contractors to bid by 17 March for the contract to build a prison in the Al-Ain area.

The companies that are preparing to submit bids include:

• Al-Fara’a General Contracting Company (local)
• Arabian Construction Company (local/Lebanon)
• Arabtec Construction (local)
• Ghantoot Transport & General Contracting Company (local)
• Habtoor Leighton Group (local/Australia)
• Nael bin Harmal (local)

The estimated AED1bn ($272m) project will be built at Al-Wathba near to the existing prison. The reformatory and penal buildings will have beds for 5,500 inmates, with 2,100 in a privately operated facility, and 3,400 in a publicly operated facility. The public facility will have 2,900 beds for men and 500 beds for women.

The main contract includes the construction, completion and maintenance of all the buildings, security fencing, boundary wall, site levelling and backfilling. The total built-up area for the buildings is 194,700 square metres.

The client’s representative is the local Accurate Project Management. The consultant is the local Al-Burj Engineering Consultants.

The contract was first tendered in 2010, but was later put on hold as Abu Dhabi conducted a strategic review of all future projects.