PSALM sets ‘design contest’ for Napocor complex privatization

Published December 9, 2018, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco

https://business.mb.com.ph/2018/12/09/psalm-sets-design-contest-for-napocor-complex-privatization/

State-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) will kick off by January next year the invitation to local and foreign firms for the design contest to underpin the sale of the National Power Corporation (Napocor) complex in Quezon City.

 “We asked the Board for approval on timetable for conducting the design contest which should commence January of this coming year… we will invite the design firms both here and abroad,” PSALM President Irene Joy Garcia told reporters.

Aside from the Napocor complex, the PSALM chief executive noted that they will also lump the Bagac property in Bataan into that scheduled design competition.

The Bagac property operates a hotel and training center and it is just approximately 9.0-kilometers away from the site of the idled Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).
“From that design contest whatever is the output, that’s the one that we will plug into the TOR (terms of reference) of the master planning for both the Bagac and NPC properties,” Garcia expounded.

She explained “the reason why we need to do master planning and design for that, we need to do exactly what should be done,” adding that they are taking their cue from what the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) had done for Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

A jury will then rate and decide on which one shall be the winning design. “There’s going to be a panel that will choose – which one has the best presentation aesthetically – including that of the planned ‘Power Building’, so that’s what we have to do,” she stressed.

For both the Napocor complex and the 44-hectare Bagac property, she emphasized that the preferred terms will be for PSALM to enter into a joint venture (JV) arrangement with a private company that can then inject capital on their re-development.

“What we need to do is find out what’s the best optimal use for the properties so that we can generate income for PSALM and the government,” she said.

Garcia added, “Ideally, the master planning will tell us what we can do with it on a commercial landscape… so perhaps, we can find a JV arrangement and then we go ahead with the master planning.”

For the Bagac property, Garcia emphasized that the most feasible decision will be for PSALM to divest it “because we are not in the business of operating a training center and a hotel, it might not make sense if we put in funding for capex (capital expenditure) to improve that hotel and training center.”