Bilfinger Berger Magazine 1/2009

The keys hanging from his belt jangle as the automatic doors snap shut behind him. He knocks on the next door along and steps inside. “Morning, I’ve brought you something to be getting on with.” Fred Gottschalk heaves a stack of files on the desk. The manila folders are la beled “Chemnitz Municipal Court” and “Insolvency Court.” Gottschalk steps back outside to fetch another stack. “Oh and here’s a bit more. Have a nice day, now.” Then he’s on his way again.

A jolly man with a local Saxon accent, Fred Gottschalk pushes his cart laden with files all day up and down the corridors of the Justice Center in Chemnitz. He starts at seven in the morning with the “registrars’ round,” followed by the “judges,” the “typing pool” and the “mail round.” It’s Fred Gottschalk’s job to collect and distribute files and mail, which is not as simple as it sounds. With an estimated two tons of paper passing through his hands on every round, it would be easy to mistake the occasional file reference, office door or pigeon hole. “But the people I deliver these files to are my customers,” says Gottschalk. “They are entitled to quality service every day.”

“I DON’T NEED TO BE A CIVIL SERVANT”
There can’t be very many court messengers in Germany who refer to their office counterparts as “customers.” Fred Gottschalk is not an employee of the judicial service, nor is he a public servant. He works for Bilfinger Berger subsidiary HSG Zander, the company that manages the Chemnitz Justice Center. That also includes the messenger services that were once mainly the preserve of civil servants. Which is why instead of the green uniform of the judicial service, Gottschalk wears a blue shirt with a name tag on the breast pocket and his employer’s logo embroidered on the collar — HSG Zander. “No,” says Gottschalk with a relaxed air, “I don’t need to be a civil servant to do a proper job.”

On the other hand, the former gardener Fred Gottschalk was not the only one exploring new territory when he first set out on his rounds at the end of 2008. The whole Justice Center is a pilot project: The first and thus far only public private partnership (PPP) project undertaken by the Free State of Saxony. The Kaßberg site in Chemnitz, already the established location of the district court and the correctional facility, now boasts a center that also combines the municipal court and public prosecution services that were previously spread between three build - ings in the city. Bilfinger Berger not only designed, built and financed the almost 11,000 square meter complex that houses around 475 staff, it has also undertaken to operate the building for the next twenty years.

A SOLUTION THAT MAKES ECONOMIC SENSE
HSG Zander employees work at the reception desk, keep the judicial service staff supplied with paperclips and copier paper and ensure that written documents are disposed of in the approved manner. They oversee the subcontractors who clean the Justice Center and run the cafeteria, and perform traditional janitorial duties such as office-to-office relocations and repairs. And from their control room they monitor everything from the power supply to the burglar alarms and the pay booths in the underground parking garage.

The benefit of this concessions model for the Free State of Saxony, which retains ownership of the site and the build ing, can be expressed in one simple figure: The PPP option is 14.3 percent cheaper than the price the state would have paid if it had followed the conventional route and executed the project on its own account. “The clear advantage in terms of economic efficiency was decisive as far as we were concerned,” says Prof. Dieter Janosch, Man aging Director of the state-owned real estate and construction management company which acted as the client. On the other hand, Janosch is also adamant that the client must be able to “afford” a PPP project: “PPP isn’t an opt-out when the coffers are empty. You can’t indulge in something that is fundamentally beyond your means.” Despite the cost advantage of PPP, the state should never under es timate the fact that the monthly fee represents a long-term commitment.

SHARING A LONG-TERM VIEW
One of the reasons why the state accepted this long-term financial commitment has to do with the particular quality of the partnership that underlies the project. As Dieter Janosch points out, “With a concessions model such as the Justice Center, we’re not the only ones who have to live with the building for 20 - 25 years. The contractor does, too.” Therefore, unlike a traditional construction project, in this model both partners share a long-term view. “For example, it makes no sense for the contractor to put down a floor that may be cheap to buy but will be much more expensive to clean than good quality flooring,” Janosch explains. “If you look at the overall period of use, it is the follow-up costs that account for 80 percent of the total.”

Not every company is capable of calculating the lifecycle costs of a building in this way. To compare the complex relationships between architecture and technical services on the one hand and the resulting costs over decades of use calls for a “vast amount of expert know-how,” says Dr. Christian Glock of Bilfinger Berger Hochbau, who managed the Justice Center project during the offer and concept development phase. From tax specialists to heating engineers, there were up to 50 experts from the various departments of Bilfinger Berger involved in a process that Christian Glock describes in these words: “Almost from the first mark the architect made on paper, all of those who would later be involved with the structure in some way took a hand. This permanent feedback allowed us to optimize the design from a holistic perspective. That’s how we arrived at a 14.3 percent cost advantage.” For example, the walls and ceilings are thicker than usual, and made of higher quality material, avoiding the need for a costly, energy-intensive system to fully air condition the courtrooms and offices.

One of the changes for the authorities here that is equally apparent to outsiders is the service team. Where once uniformed guards sat behind glass screens, today HSG Zander employees give directions from an open-fronted reception desk. And just as one reception desk has replaced the counters for the public prosecutor and the municipal court in separate buildings, so too at the new Justice Center the two mail rooms have been merged into one joint department that sorts, bags, stamps and dispatches the mail — in the interests of improved process economy.

Senior Public Prosecutor Bernd Vogel sees the biggest advantage of the new Justice Center in the time it saves: “We used to have to drive by car to hearings at one court or the other. Now we just tuck the files under our arm and step across to the courtroom.” In the past, if a hearing was interrupted, Vogel and his colleagues often found themselves idly waiting, simply because it wasn‘t worth driving halfway across town to their own offices: “Now we just sit right back down at our desks and use the time productively.” Interaction with the judges, too, is all the better for being easier: “There’s a far better chance of meeting for a cup of coffee,” says Vogel, who is full of praise for the “excellent” kitchen facilities on every corridor.

“I’M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Not all the neighbors are so agreeable: With the correctional facility so close at hand, it is far easier to bring prisoners before the courts. In return, some of the public prosecutors‘ offices directly overlook the prison — whose occupants look right back at the prosecutors at their desks. “The people over there have more time on their hands than we do,” says Vogel. “They spend hours behind the bars on their windows, calling to one another, playing with mirrors.” One of them once shouted, “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!” Vogel at any rate is more than happy that his office faces in the opposite direction: He gets to look at trees and apartment buildings with the laundry hanging out to dry.

(Text: Stefan Scheytt, Photos: Frank Schultze)
Bilfinger Berger Magazine 1/2009