B-299486.3, Liberty Street East Associates, June 15, 2007

B-299486.3 Jun 15, 2007 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Liberty Street East Associates protests the award of a lease to Ashford/Warren Associates, LP under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. R9-6-1, issued by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for office and related space in Warren, Pennsylvania. Liberty asserts that the agency's technical evaluation of its proposal was flawed. We deny the protest. View Decision B-299486.3, Liberty Street East Associates, June 15, 2007 Decision Matter of: Liberty Street East Associates File: B-299486.3 Date: June 15, 2007 Robert P. Yoder for the protester. Elin M. Dugan, Esq., Department of Agriculture, 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 1. Where agency report rebuts protester's allegations with regard to price evaluation, and protester fails to respond to agency's rebuttal in its comments on the agency's report, issues are considered abandoned and will not be considered; abandoned issues also will not be considered when reasserted in supplemental comments, as Bid Protest Regulations do not contemplate piecemeal development of protest issues. 2. Protest allegations challenging agency's evaluation of protester's proposal are denied where alleged evaluation errors did not result in competitive prejudice to protester; even if protester's evaluation score were increased to level asserted by protester, awardee's score would remain higher and, when combined with its lower price, would still reasonably support award. DECISION Liberty Street East Associates protests the award of a lease to Ashford/Warren Associates, LP under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. R9-6-1, issued by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for office and related space in Warren, Pennsylvania. Liberty asserts that the agency's technical evaluation of its proposal was flawed. We deny the protest. The SFO sought a minimum of 20,300 usable square feet for USDA, for use by the Allegheny National Forest Supervisor's Office. All offers were evaluated under five factors--site; building image and physical characteristics; efficient layout and interior space; high performance features; and price. The technical factors combined were equal in weight to price. Award was to be made to the firm whose offer was considered most advantageous to the government.[1] Four firms, including Liberty and Ashford, submitted offers. The evaluation panel members individually reviewed the offers and made site visits, and the panel then reached consensus scores for each offer.[2] All four offers were placed in the competitive range and the agency conducted written discussions with the offerors before requesting final proposal revisions. Out of a possible 660 points, Ashford's proposal received a final consensus score of 340 points, with a rental rate of $17.50 per square foot, and Liberty's received a score of 190 points, with an evaluated rental rate of $18.91.[3] Based on the respective offers' technical scores and prices, the contracting officer, as source selection authority (SSA), determined that Ashford's offer was most advantageous to the government and awarded it the lease. After a debriefing and unsuccessful agency-level protest, Liberty filed this protest with our Office. Liberty first asserts that its offer would have been evaluated as most advantageous to the government if the agency had properly considered the offerors' respective heating and cooling costs in the price evaluation. Based on its proposal of a geothermal system, Liberty maintains, its heating and cooling cost would be only $1.02 per square foot throughout the lease period, while, it infers, Ashford's would start at $3.50 to $4.50 per square foot and would increase each year. Had these costs been added onto the square foot rental prices of each offer, Liberty asserts, its price would be lower than Ashford's. In its report, the agency responded that low price alone would not make an offer the most advantageous, since price and technical factors were equal under the SFO's evaluation scheme; that Liberty did not propose the lowest-price lease; and that Liberty's argument was based on speculation as to Ashford's heating and cooling costs. Agency Report (AR) at vi. Liberty's initial comments on the agency's report focused on its technical evaluation and provided no rebuttal to the agency's position. Where, as here, an agency specifically addresses an issue raised by the protester in its initial protest, and the protester fails to rebut the agency response in its comments, we consider the issue abandoned by the protester and will not consider it.[4] Analex Space Sys., Inc.; PAI Corp., B-259024, B-259024.2, Feb. 21, 1995, 95-1 CPD para. 106 at 8.