R. L. Sockey Real Estate & Construction, Inc., B-286086, November 17, 2000

B-286086 Nov 17, 2000 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights A firm protested a Department of Agriculture (USDA) contract award for a real-estate lease, contending that USDA unreasonably evaluated its proposal. GAO held that USDA reasonably evaluated the protester's bid in accordance with the solicitation's evaluation criteria. Accordingly, the protest was denied. View Decision Matter of: R. L. Sockey Real Estate & Construction, Inc. File: B-286086 Date: November 17, 2000 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION R. L. Sockey Real Estate & Construction, Inc. protests the award of a lease by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), to Cagle & Nobles under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. 57-7335-0-3. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND Together with another Department of Agriculture agency, the Farms Service Agency (FSA), NRCS has been leasing office space from Sockey under a lease whose initial 5-year term expired at the end of September 1999. This lease included a 5-year renewal option, with the rental rate to be negotiated at the time of renewal. Agency Report (AR) exh. 4, Sockey Lease. In August 1999, FSA began negotiating with Sockey for lease renewal terms, but was not willing to accept Sockey's offer at $14.80 per square foot. In October, the contracting officer concluded that Sockey's final offered rate of $14.00 per square foot was unreasonable and terminated the negotiations with Sockey. AR exh. 2, Memorandum of Law, at 3. THE CURRENT SOLICITATION On February 18, 2000, NRCS issued the current SFO under simplified lease acquisition procedures, requesting offers for a 5-year lease of approximately 4,675 square feet of office space in the vicinity of Poteau, Oklahoma. AR exh. 12, SFO. Only two offers were submitted by the established closing date, both from Sockey. In one offer, Sockey offered the existing space, which did not meet the SFO's usable square footage requirement, and in the other, it offered to construct an additional room to expand the existing space. Sockey offered a price of $12.75 per usable square foot in each offer. AR exh. 13 and 14, Sockey Offers. In an attempt to increase competition for the lease, NRCS decided to amend the solicitation. The amendment replaced the simplified real property lease form with the standard real property lease form, which includes clauses applying to construction of space. The use of the standard form was intended to encourage offers of new construction as well as offers of existing buildings from firms that could have believed the simplified lease form and procedures favored the incumbent. AR exh. 2, Memorandum of Law, at 4-5. The solicitation was amended on May 17. The amended SFO in section 2.3 provided that the lease would be awarded to the firm whose offer "will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other award factors which follow considered," and stated that price would be of equal importance to the combination of the other award factors. The SFO listed the following award factors, in descending order of importance: quality/physical characteristics; accessibility and location; layout capability; safety; parking; first floor space; fixed rate, fully serviced lease; and energy conservation. The agency received four offers, including two submitted by Sockey. A technical evaluation team reviewed and scored the technical and price proposals, with the following results: Offeror Price Price Pts. Tech. Pts. Total Cagle & Nobles $57,268.75 42.3 48.3 90.6 Sockey 1 /1/ $50,102.50 50 36.3 86.3 Sockey 2 $57,158.50 43.8 38.3 82.1 Firm A $75,000.00 32.5 45.3 77.8 AR, Tab 22, Evaluation Chart at 1. Sockey's two offers were again based on providing the space currently being leased and, alternatively, on providing that space as expanded by an additional room. Cagle & Nobles offered to construct a new building to suit the agency's requirements. In evaluating the offered prices, the real property leasing officer added $9,500 for moving costs to Cagle & Nobles's price, which resulted in an increase of $1,900 per year, for an annual lease price of $59,168.75. The same amount was added to the highest-priced offer. Sockey's offers were not adjusted in this manner because it offered the same space currently being occupied. Based on the technical and price evaluation results, the real property leasing officer recommended award to Cagle & Nobles; the USDA Source Selection Authority concurred, and the contracting officer awarded the lease contract on July 10. After protesting to the agency on July 21, Sockey filed its protest in our Office on August 15. Sockey challenges the evaluation of the proposals and the resulting award decision, alleging that the technical scoring does not reflect the quality and physical characteristics of the building Sockey offered.