The college estimates the build will be worth around £40m. Once finished the successful consortium will run the campus building for 25 years, with profits capped at a pre-agreed rate.

Built floor space will be around 200,000 sq ft, including building a  main college building at Beechwood (180,000sq ft), a 7,500 sq ft teaching block at the Scottish School of Forestry at Balloch and converting an existing 1,500 sq ft block to workshops.

Infrastructure works for the huge campus site including roads and drainage are to be handled under a separate £20m contract currently being procured.

The Inverness College board is finalising the outline design of the new buildings with architects Building Design Partnership, while preparing a full project business case for submission to the Scottish Funding Council.

Building work is planned to commence in 2012 with the new facility set to open its doors to students in 2014.

Contractors and consortium bidders have until 3 February to express an interest to allow tenders to be issued towards the end of March.

A bidders day will be held in Inverness in January. Full details for registration and attendance will be included in the PQQ documentation.

The Glasgow office of Gardiner & Theobald is overseeing the procurement process. Further details from Karen Gorman tel: 01415687333 or email k.gorman@gardiner.com