Marshall-Putnam Soil and Water Conservation District, , May 29, 2002

Marshall-Putnam Soil and Water Conservation District, , May 29, 2002 TITLE: Marshall-Putnam Soil and Water Conservation District, , May 29, 2002 BNUMBER: B-289949 DATE: May 29, 2002 ********************************************************************** Decision Matter of: Marshall-Putnam Soil and Water Conservation District File: B-289949; B-289949.2 Date: May 29, 2002 Jill Ketter for the protester. Alan D. Groesbeck, Esq., Department of Agriculture, for the agency. Aldo A. Benejam, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Under solicitation for offers for leased office space, proposal that failed to conform to material solicitation requirements for architectural elevation and landscape plans could not form the basis for award. DECISION The Marshall-Putnam (MP) Soil and Water Conservation District protests the award of a lease to Henry Developers, Inc. under a solicitation for offers (SFO) issued by the Farm Service Agency (FSA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), for 3,600 square feet of office space. The office space is to serve as the new USDA Service Center in Henry, Illinois, and will serve Marshall and Putnam counties. The protester primarily maintains that USDA should have rejected Henry's proposal as technically unacceptable. We sustain the protest. BACKGROUND FSA issued this SFO on December 12, 2001, contemplating an initial 5-year lease at a fixed annual price, with one 5-year option period. SFO para. 1.3, at 5. The SFO sought offers for approximately 3,600 square feet of office space in a new or existing building in Henry, Illinois.[1] At the same time that FSA issued the SFO, it provided offerors with what appears to be a rough floor plan indicating the agency's ?preferred? layout of the required space. The SFO listed the following technical evaluation factors in descending order of importance: accessibility/location; quality/physical characteristics; layout compatibility; parking; safety; first floor space; fixed rate, fully serviced lease; proximity of eating facilities; energy conservation; and price. The SFO provided instructions on the type of information and architectural details offerors were required to include with their offers. As for price, offerors were instructed to submit an annual rental rate per square foot for the initial 5?year term of the lease, and for the option period. Technical factors and price were of equal importance. Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal earned the highest combined score of both price and technical factors. Four firms, including the protester and the awardee, responded to the SFO by the January 11, 2002 closing date. The acting County Executive Director (CED), who was responsible for conducting this acquisition, excluded one offer from further consideration, leaving the protester's, Henry's and a third offeror's proposals in the competition. Both Henry and MP offered new construction. The third offeror proposed space in what the record refers to as a ?historical? building. Upon his initial review of offers, the CED noted that with its offer, Henry attached a copy of the rough layout that FSA had provided, but did not provide any architectural drawings, elevations or other details about the offered building. Before proceeding to evaluate offers, the CED sought advice from the FSA State Administrative Officer (AO) regarding the sufficiency of Henry's plan. According to the CED, the AO advised him that the rough floor plan Henry attached to its offer would meet the government's needs. The CED and an NRCS representative evaluated technical offers by assigning numerical ratings under each factor and a total score, for a maximum of 50 points in the technical area. Price was evaluated by assigning the maximum possible score (50 points) to the lowest price, and proportionately lower scores to higher prices. The table below shows the results of the technical and price evaluation for the proposals submitted by the protester and the awardee (prices reflect upward adjustments FSA made to reflect certain required services): Offeror Price/ Price Tech. Total Sq. Ft. Score Score Score Henry $13.55 50 46 96 MP 14.04 48 46 94 AR exh. L, Cost and Technical Analysis. In a letter dated January 29, FSA notified the protester that it had selected another firm for the lease. This protest followed. MP primarily contends that FSA should have rejected Henry's offer as technically unacceptable because that firm did not include with its offer elevation or landscape plans allegedly required by the SFO.[2] Timeliness USDA requests that we dismiss the protest as untimely. The agency argues that MP learned that Henry had not included elevation plans with its offer on February 4, 2002. Relying on 4 C.F.R. sect.