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Search the Public Notice PortalCity Hall is on the hunt to find a developer to build 67 homes for a flagship scheme to boost affordable housing in the city.
Norwich City Council is offering a £20.5m contract to begin the redevelopment of the former Mile Cross depot.
It is the first phase of a wider scheme of 200 homes at the site.
The flagship project was approved in 2024 but has faced delays due to the "complexities" of the development, officers have said.
The Labour-controlled cabinet will meet next week to discuss delegating authority to the executive director of communities and housing to begin the tendering process to find a developer that offers the best value for money.
Independent specialists, Richard Utting Associates, have been brought in to act as agents to help find a firm to undertake the scheme.
Plans to transform the former depot have been in the pipeline for seven years.
Councillors first raised the idea of building houses at the derelict former depot in 2017 and set aside £41.3m for the scheme, which has hit several hurdles.
The Mile Cross site was previously the council's City Works depot, where City Hall's fleet of vehicles and in-house workers were based.
The site was used to dispose of rubble after buildings in the city were bombed during the Baedeker Raids of 1942, so careful checks had to be carried out as part of the plans.
LION HOMES
The progress of the Mile Cross Depot development comes at a difficult time for Norwich City Council amid growing scrutiny of how it will deliver housing in the future.
It comes after it announced Lion Homes, a council-owned housing company, will be wound up through liquidation - a process that allows all creditors to be paid.
Lion Homes was not linked with the Mile Cross scheme, but the turmoil has led to uncertainty over other future council developments
Lion Homes, which is wholly owned by Norwich City Council, was founded a decade ago in the hopes of delivering more affordable housing and an additional income stream.
However, it was announced last month that the company was being put into voluntary liquidation after years of financial difficulties.
A report into Lion Homes has revealed that the council has already written off £6m it loaned to the company as it searches for a way forward.
Alex Catt, leader of the Green group at City Hall, accused the authority of a "complacent and chaotic" approach in its oversight of the firm and suggested it had attempted to hide its losses.
But Labour leaders insist that any outstanding debts will be "vastly reduced" when Lion Homes' assets come into council ownership and are properly valued.
The company was founded as Norwich Regeneration Limited in 2015 and has long faced strong criticism.
In 2020, it emerged the company had lost £6m of taxpayer cash when homes in Bowthorpe were sold for less than they cost to build and the council was overcharged.
It went on to suffer more than £2m in losses over three years and its accounts have not been filed since the end of 2023.
Mr Catt has accused the council of ignoring "clear warning signs" after a consultancy report published in October last year raised concerns about the firm and said its objectives were "not clear" and created an "inconsistent understanding" within the organisation.
He said: "Lion Homes was never properly run. It existed in a grey area where no one seemed to know who was accountable.
"This is representative of a pattern where Labour believes it can manage public funds behind closed doors without checks, without transparency, and without consequence."
Following calls for an investigation into the closure of the company last month, the Labour-run cabinet agreed to ask the scrutiny committee, made up of opposition councillors, to undertake a review.
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