IN Brief:
- Sweco was selected for three framework agreements with Sweden’s state-owned high-security property owner Specialfastigheter.
- The estimated SEK 500 million combined value covers potential design, investigation and project and construction management assignments.
- The agreements run from January 2027 to January 2029, with two possible one-year extensions and no guaranteed order volume.
Sweco has been awarded three frameworks by Swedish state-owned property company Specialfastigheter for engineering services on prisons, police premises and court buildings. Together they have an estimated order value of SEK 500 million, covering feasibility studies, investigations, design, and project and construction management. The customer serves civilian justice and policing agencies; no armed-forces construction contract is identified, and the framework estimate does not guarantee actual assignments.
Specialfastigheter owns, develops and manages properties with demanding security and operational requirements, including prisons, juvenile care facilities, police buildings and courthouses. The estate includes sites that limit access to protected areas and control the movement of occupants, while courts and some police premises also accommodate members of the public. Sweco can receive individual professional-services commissions under the frameworks, but the announcement identifies no particular building project or completion date.
The agreements begin on 15 January 2027 and continue until 14 January 2029, according to Sweco’s Swedish announcement. Two further one-year extensions are possible. Sweco says the combined estimated order value is approximately SEK 500 million, but explicitly states that no volume of work is guaranteed. Specialfastigheter may commission work during the framework term, with timing and value determined by individual assignments rather than the SEK 500 million headline estimate.
The three frameworks span distinct phases in a secure building’s planning and delivery. Early studies examine whether a property and its systems can accommodate operational requirements, access restrictions and future changes. Investigation and design develop layouts, technical specifications and interfaces between building systems. Project and construction management then coordinate approved work, including contractor interfaces, technical decisions and delivery records. No first assignment, site-specific design package or construction budget was identified in the announcement.
In a high-security estate, the requirements for physical separation, access control and movement routes can affect the underlying building plan. A court may need clear separation between public circulation, staff areas and secure transport routes; a custodial facility has different demands for supervision, controlled access and reliable operation of building services. These are general design requirements for secure public buildings, not specifications published for the new Sweco commissions.
Engineering decisions must also reconcile security arrangements with fire safety, maintenance and the continuing operation of the public service. Security zoning must be reconciled with emergency egress, maintainable utility routes and reliable access for authorised staff. Mechanical and electrical systems may require resilience where a failure would interrupt an essential operation. Sweco’s appointment covers professional services, while site-specific technical designs, access systems and security specifications have not been disclosed.
Specialfastigheter manages a national estate of premises requiring adaptation, maintenance and redevelopment as public-service needs change. The company identifies prisons, youth institutions, courthouses and police properties among its core assets. Each assignment may have different planning, permitting and construction constraints. Common document controls and clear interfaces between disciplines can help manage changes across sites, but the awards do not include a stated savings target or requirement for a standard building template.
Sweco says its multidisciplinary specialists will support project and construction management as well as the investigative and design phases. The resulting projects will require coordination between concept designs, approved requirements, construction programmes and records of completed work. A change to access arrangements, for example, can affect structure, services distribution and maintenance routes. On occupied sites, engineers may have to schedule access to mechanical rooms, security-controlled areas and service routes around the agencies’ continuing operations. That can affect construction phasing and the sequence for isolating, replacing and commissioning building services. Sweco has not published a breakdown of the potential framework value by discipline, subcontractor or site.
These frameworks extend Sweco’s public-security and resilience work, which overlaps technically with some protected defence infrastructure but has a different customer and contractual purpose. Specialfastigheter’s principal users in the announcement are civil agencies responsible for justice, policing and custody. Sweco has not stated that any of these agreements covers ammunition facilities, military installations or classified defence equipment. Delivery will depend on the individual studies, designs and managed works that Specialfastigheter commissions from January 2027.
Fredrik Wallner, business area president of Sweco Sweden, said the company expects to use experience from comparable work in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe to support Specialfastigheter. Any additional income will depend on call-offs, their scope and their timetable, not simply the maximum duration of the framework arrangements. The next reportable milestones will be specific project appointments and their associated engineering deliverables, as no initial volume is guaranteed.
Featured photograph: © Anna W Thorbjörnsson. Reproduced with permission; photographer attribution required.
