The Government of Alberta has published the Request for Proposal (RFP) to the single respondent that must submit detailed plans and financial bid for designing, building financing and maintaining 19 schools under a public private partnership contract.

The only bidder for the project was Calgary's Gracorp Capital and Graham Construction.

Wayne Drysdale, Minister of Infrastructure, said:

We are continuing with the P3 process.  After looking at our delivery options, we found this is still the best way to provide value for Alberta taxpayers and ensure the 19 new schools are completed on time.

Given that there is only one bidder, the Minister said that a public-private partnership (P3) contract will only be secured if value for money is shown.

This P3 schools bundle is part of Premier Redford's commitment to build 50 new schools and modernize 70 more, and part of government's Building Alberta Plan that will invest $1.4 billion in new schools and major modernization projects over the next three years.

Alberta's government plans to award the project  by next summer and start construction shortly after that.

Several sources indicated a month ago that they wouldn't submit a proposal for the project because they don't have capacity to bid for the project.