Cohen-Esrey Real Estate Services, Inc., B-277546, October 27,

B-277546 Oct 27, 1997 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Evaluation was reasonable and consistent with solicitation requiring offerors to demonstrate experience in acquisition and delivery of lease space in major markets where solicitation defined "major markets" as "cities" listed elsewhere in the solicitation and specifically identified suburban areas. Protester's assumption that suburban area of Kansas City would be considered a "major market" was unreasonable and inconsistent with the definition and usage of that term in the solicitation. GSA is responsible for the assignment and utilization of space by all federal agencies. Pertinent here are the competition and proposals submitted for award of contracts for services in the Central Zone. View Decision Matter of: Cohen-Esrey Real Estate Services, Inc. File: B-277546 Date: October 27, 1997 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Cohen-Esrey Real Estate Services, Inc. protests the award of contracts to Equis Corporation and PM Realty Group, Ltd., under request for proposals (RFP) No. GS-02P-96-CVD-0006, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) for real estate services. The protester asserts that the agency unreasonably evaluated its proposal in a manner inconsistent with the provisions of the RFP. GSA is responsible for the assignment and utilization of space by all federal agencies, and the acquisition of space by lease to house those agencies; GSA issued the RFP on November 29, 1996, for services to assist the agency in acquiring leasehold interests in real property, as well as other pre- and post-acquisition realty services. For purposes of the solicitation, the agency divided its 11 regions into 4 zones, providing for the award of one or more fixed-price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts in each zone, for a 3-year base period, with a right of cancellation after the first and second years and two 1-year options. The solicitation required offerors to submit separate technical and price proposals for each zone for which they desired to compete; pertinent here are the competition and proposals submitted for award of contracts for services in the Central Zone, consisting of GSA regions 5, 6, and 8--the Chicago, Kansas City, and Denver regions. The RFP, as issued, consisted of five sections, in addition to appendices. These sections were as follows: I, General Information; II, Scope of Work; III, Pricing Structure; IV, Qualifications of the Offeror; and V, Evaluation Methodology. Section I provided general information on the agency's mission, the general scope of the solicitation, and the procurement process; section II summarized the effort. Section III instructed offerors on pricing lease acquisition services and menu services and contained information on estimated work load. These instructions advised offerors of limitations on the accuracy of the estimates; they also contained a listing of the primary areas of work load, by zone and GSA region. Section V notified potential competitors that the agency intended to select for award those proposals representing the greatest overall value, price and technical factors considered; technical factors, in descending order of importance, were as follows: experience and past performance (60 percent); organizational approach (30 percent); and small business participation (10 percent). The solicitation further advised offerors that the combined weight of these technical factors would be significantly more important than price. As originally issued, section IV of the solicitation, Qualifications of the Offeror, contained a minimum requirement for 5 years experience in providing real estate services similar to the required effort. To meet this requirement, the RFP directed offerors to submit descriptions of five "projects" performed within the prior 5 years, demonstrating ability "to acquire and deliver lease space both for small (less than 10,000 square feet) and large (greater than 10,000 square feet) requirements, . . . in both urban and remote locations, and to perform lease administration services." This experience was referred to as experience in the five major service areas--that is, small, large, urban, and rural leasing and lease administration. Offerors were to submit a narrative description, describing the work performed, and explaining how the client's needs were met in terms of space and service delivery, timeliness of service, and price, as well as the names and telephone numbers of clients and building owners and dates of performance. By February 21, 1997, GSA had received 96 offers from 67 companies, and the agency referred them to a source selection evaluation board (SSEB) for evaluation. Upon reviewing the proposals, the SSEB concluded that it would be necessary to clarify the submittal requirements and evaluation criteria relative to experience and past performance, to ensure a consistent evaluation across all four zones.