The Victorian Government (Australia) signed on Tuesday Sept. 16th a contract with GEO Consortium to deliver the Ravenhall Prison PPP project in Melbourne.

The Geo Consortium team is formed by: GEO Group Australia, John Holland, Honeywell and Capella Capital. The consortium beat out competition form Secure Pathways, which was formed by John Laing Investments, Serco Australia, Baulderstone and Macquarie Capital Group.

The project involves the design, construction, finance, operation and maintenance of the prison for a period of 25 years. The Ravenhall prison will expanded to accommodate 1300 medium security male prisoners. The project also involves the design, construction, finance and maintenance of a Statewide Services Building. Specifically the project involves:

• built capacity for 1,300 prisoners to meet possible future demand;
• modern prison technology to safely and securely contain prisoners;
• a 75-bed mental health unit, together with specialist mental health services for a further 100 other prisoners at Ravenhall;
• plans for service providers to continue to engage prisoners after release to further reduce their risk of reoffending;
• incentive payments for reducing reoffending across the prisoner population; and
• a flexible prison design allowing for future changes to cater for prisoners with different needs.

The project has an estimated investment of A$670 million.

Treasurer Michael O'Brien stated:

As part of this investment, we are making a contribution of $310 million to the project which will be paid once the prison is constructed and ready for operation. This will provide an incentive for the project to be delivered on time and reduce the amount of private sector debt over the life of the project.

Construction is scheduled to commence in early 2015 and is scheduled for completion in late 2017.