The New Jersey & H Street Limited Partnership, B-288026; B-288026.2, July 17, 2001

The New Jersey & H Street Limited Partnership, B-288026; B-288026.2, July 17, 2001 TITLE: The New Jersey & H Street Limited Partnership, B-288026; B-288026.2, July 17, 2001 BNUMBER: B-288026; B-288026.2 DATE: July 17, 2001 ********************************************************************** The New Jersey & H Street Limited Partnership, B-288026; B-288026.2, July 17, 2001 Decision Matter of: The New Jersey & H Street Limited Partnership File: B-288026; B-288026.2 Date: July 17, 2001 Robert K. Huffman, Esq., Cameron S. Hamrick, Esq., and David F. Dowd, Esq., Mayer, Brown & Platt, and Michael J. Farley, Esq., Miller & Chevalier, for the protester. Philip M. Horowitz, Esq., Michael R. Goldstein, Esq., and Amy E. Suski, Esq., Arter & Hadden, for Louis Dreyfus Properties, LLC, an intervenor. George C. Brown, Esq., John P. Sholar, Esq., Richard J. Ufford, Esq., and Angela E. Clark, Esq., Securities and Exchange Commission, for the agency. Paul E. Jordan, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Where protester's proposal was eliminated from competitive range, agency was not required to provide protester opportunity to submit revised proposal based on amended requirement; since amendment was not substantial such that it would not have been reasonably anticipated by offerors, agency also was not required to provide all interested firms an opportunity to propose on the amended requirement. DECISION The New Jersey & H Street Limited Partnership (NJ&H) protests the award of a contract to The Louis Dreyfus Property Group of New York under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. SECHQ-00-R-0030, issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for construction and lease of office space. We deny the protest. The SFO, issued September 8, 2000, sought proposals to furnish 630,000 to 650,000 rentable square feet of office space to be available not later than December 31, 2003. Several offerors, including NJ&H and Dreyfus, submitted proposals, all of which were included in the initial competitive range. After the SEC conducted discussions and obtained best and final offers (BAFO), it determined that NJ&H's proposal fell outside the revised competitive range. On January 29, 2001 the SEC notified NJ&H of this fact and stated that proposal revisions therefore would not be considered. The protester requested and, in the form of a letter dated February 22, received a debriefing in which the agency provided a detailed listing of the strengths and weaknesses of the firm's proposal, and specifically stated that NJ&H's BAFO was "eliminated from the competition because it does not provide the close proximity and dedicated, secure access to transportation links, metro, and amenities as is found in the revised competitive range." In response to a March 16 request for an oral debriefing, on May 7 the SEC provided additional information. On May 29, the contracting officer made award to Dreyfus. NJ&H filed this protest on June 8. NJ&H asserts that the evaluation and negotiations were flawed. Specifically, the protester asserts that the agency improperly considered whether offered properties had "dedicated access" to transportation and amenities, since that was not specifically listed as an evaluation factor. NJ&H also asserts that the agency improperly identified two areas of its proposal (ratio of perimeter glass to usable square feet and the co-developer's role) as weaknesses, maintaining that its proposal fully addressed those matters. Further, NJ&H alleges that the agency improperly failed to discuss these matters during negotiations. The agency has requested summary dismissal of the protest as untimely filed. Having considered the protester's response to the agency's dismissal request, as well as the supplemental protest (discussed below), we agree that the protest is largely untimely and that the remaining issue can be resolved without submission of a full agency report. Our Bid Protest Regulations require that protests (other than those challenging solicitation terms) be filed not later than 10 days after the basis of protest is known or should have been known. 4 C.F.R. sect. 21.2(a)(2) (2001). More specifically, a protest based upon information provided to the protester at a debriefing is untimely if filed more than 10 days after the debriefing. Clean Venture, Inc., B-284176, Mar. 6, 2000, 2000 CPD para. 47 at 4 n.5; TeleLink Research, Inc., B-247052, Apr. 28, 1992, 92-1 CPD para. 400 at 5. All of the information underlying NJ&H's protest grounds was specifically identified in the SEC's February 22 written debriefing, and reiterated in the May 7 letter.