The Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has saved its great infrastructure project of the legislature, the City of Justice, at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday. In November 2022, the tender for this multimillion-dollar work was deserted. So, the Community opened a new process in which it sent direct invitations to 10 companies, within a negotiated process without publicity, and tweaked aspects of the specifications to make them more attractive without altering their main lines. This Wednesday, just at the limit of the expiration of the term, and when it seemed that the project was going to run aground definitively, the consortium formed by Iridium and Acciona has presented an offer, as explained by the Government.
In this way, Ayuso will stand in the municipal and regional elections on May 28, having started the macro-project for the concentration of judicial headquarters, which will be located in Valdebebas, in the Hortaleza district, which should already be in operation by the end of 2027. and that it will mortgage the regional accounts for the next 40 years. That is the time during which the Community will have to pay the concessionaire, regardless of which party governs, which is criticized by the opposition, which would have preferred to undertake the project with its own funds.
“We have received an offer from a group that, once it is analyzed by the Contracting Committee, will have the final award”, celebrated the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and the Interior, Enrique López. “Thus, Madrid will have a single judicial headquarters, the most important judicial concentration in southern Europe, which will modernize the entire real estate infrastructure, completing an impeccable and meticulous process,” López added.
If the contract is definitively awarded, the builder will have to spend more than 500 million to raise 18 buildings, with the expectation that the Administration will pay more than 40 million a year for the next 36 years (up to a ceiling of 2,100) and to be able to During that time, exploit the commercial premises, car parks and offices to obtain a profit of more than 230 million. This bet is especially risky in a context of economic and energy crisis, with the prices of construction materials and inflation skyrocketing, and with such a long-term commitment. That is what explains the difficulties that the Community has had to find someone to carry it out.
The regional administration, headed by counselor Enrique López, tried everything to save the project. This is how a government spokesman explained it, to questions from this newspaper, a few weeks ago, when the approach had not yet failed.
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“The Public Sector Contracts Law allows the negotiation formula without advertising, if the contest was previously deserted,” he said about the invitation extended to 10 companies chosen by hand to try to carry out the contest. “No substantial element is modified, such as the base budget for the bidding [2.547.394.367 euros], the remuneration system, the award criteria or the price review formula”, he added. “Those companies that, meeting the solvency requirements, have already shown interest, and complying with the minimum requirement of three, as required by law, will be invited.”
In this way, a cursed project begins to see the light. It was born with the government of Esperanza Aguirre (2003-2015), which was the first promoter of the concentration of judicial headquarters in Valdebebas. The project was presented 72 times and involved paid trips to New York or Singapore. The act of placing the first stone cost more than a million. Useless reports were paid for by more than 80,000 euros and an advertising program of some 200,000 euros invested in umbrellas, caps, t-shirts, and a promotional book was promoted. The vast majority of employees of the judicial complex were managers with payrolls of over 100,000 euros per year. And in the end, at least 110 million were spent so that the plan to unite all the judicial headquarters in the region was never completed: only one of the fourteen planned buildings was built.
Of that megalomaniac project only two things remain today: the donut of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, now in the vicinity of the Isabel Zendal nursing hospital, and a judicial investigation that is still open in which charges from the Esperanza Aguirre governments are under scrutiny, such as former counselor and former vice president Alfredo Prada, for whom anti-corruption asked for eight years in prison in January 2021.
In 2014, with Ignacio González as president of the regional Executive, the Aguirre project was resumed, which was renamed Ciudad de la Justicia. In 2015, and already with Cristina Cifuentes as president, it was paralyzed, which led to lawsuits by construction companies for breach of contract. In 2020, justice agreed with the Community. Then Ayuso began to promote his own project, the same one that now seems to be taking a decisive step.
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