VicForests (Principal) invites Expressions of Interest for the design, construction, and delivery of the proposed State Forest Nursery in East Gippsland, Victoria (Project).

The Principal intends to undertake a two-stage process. The Expression of Interest (EOI) is the first stage and will enable the Principal to:

• Advise Applicants of the general scope of the services required;
• Assess Applicants experience, capacity, reliability and commitment to quality.
• Identify and shortlist potential applicants; and

Applicants must comply with the EOI conditions set out in this section. A failure to comply with the EOI conditions may result in disqualification from the EOI process or rejection of a Applicant’s EOI response.

EOI responses must be in accordance with the requirements of this brief and include information requested in Section 3 – Expression of Interest Response Schedule.

Selected Applicants will be invited to submit a detailed tender for the Project; however lodgement of an EOI does not guarantee inclusion on the list of selected potential applicants.

A maximum of up to five applicants from the EOI process will be shortlisted for invitation to the Request For Tender (RFT).

The Principal reserves the right not to proceed to the RFT stage.

The State Forest Nursery (Nursery) development will be a facility to grow softwood and native hardwood tree seedlings at a commercial volume of up to 5 million containerised seedlings annually. The seedlings are for future plantation establishment, farm forestry programs, reafforestation, and bushfire recovery programs. The Nursery is also planned to have the capacity for small runs of native plants and grasses, indigenous bushfood species and other products as required, and to supplement softwood plantation fire recovery as needed.

The Principal is seeking a modern facility that has an optimised progression of the growing process from the initial seeding of trays to the dispatch of marketable seedlings. Priority considerations for the design include worker safety, plant health and hygiene, biosecurity, and economical and efficient production flow.

The Principal, through this Expression of Interest, seeks an experienced commercial nursery Design and Construct contractor to undertake the design and construction of the proposed State Forest Nursery.

The Principal invites the participation of, and responses from, applicants in the nursery design and construction market that can comply with the requirements as set out in section 1 (Compliance Requirements) in this Expression of Interest document. The successful Applicants will then be invited to submit a response to the RFT.