B-310980; B-310980.2; B-310980.3, Fedcar Company, Ltd., March 25, 2008

B-310980; B-310980.2; B-310980.3, Fedcar Company, Ltd., March 25, 2008 TITLE: B-310980; B-310980.2; B-310980.3, Fedcar Company, Ltd., March 25, 2008 BNUMBER: B-310980; B-310980.2; B-310980.3 DATE: March 25, 2008 ********************************************************************** B-310980; B-310980.2; B-310980.3, Fedcar Company, Ltd., March 25, 2008 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Fedcar Company, Ltd. File: B-310980; B-310980.2; B-310980.3 Date: March 25, 2008 Michele M. Brown, Esq., David S. Black, Esq., Thomas M. Brownell, Esq., Allison V. Feierabend, Esq., and Robert C. MacKichan, Jr., Esq., Holland & Knight LLP, for the protester. Fernand A. Lavallee, Esq., Jeffrey R. Keitelman, Esq., and J. Philip Ludvigson, Esq., DLA Piper US LLP, for the intervenor. Carl E. Smith, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency. Nora K. Adkins, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Where an agency bases its source selection decision for the award of a lease on incorrectly calculated costs, the source selection is not reasonably based. 2. Source selection document that only discusses strengths of awardee's higher-rated, higher-priced proposal but not its weaknesses, or the strengths and the weaknesses found in protester's slightly lower-rated, lower-priced proposal does not reasonably justify tradeoff decision. 3. A purported acceptance of a lease offer by the General Services Administration that is conditioned on the offeror's assent to terms additional to, or different from, those offered is not an acceptance, but a counteroffer, and does not create a binding lease contract. DECISION Fedcar Company, Ltd. protests the award of a lease contract to Duke Realty Limited Partnership by the General Services Administration (GSA) under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. GS-05B-18064, for the construction and lease of a dedicated campus facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, for use by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). We sustain the protest. On January 17, 2006, GSA issued an SFO for the lease of a site of approximately 6 to 9 acres to be developed into a fully-serviced FBI campus facility with 110,531 rentable square feet of office and related space for a 15-year term. Contracting Officer's Statement (COS) at 1. The procurement was to be conducted in two separate phases; Phase I required offerors to submit proposals that included information on the offeror's technical approach and qualifications, while Phase II addressed design concepts and cost proposals. After the evaluation of the Phase I proposals, the agency would select the qualified offerors that would advance to Phase II. SFO, as amended, at 31. The original acquisition plan contemplated that GSA would obtain a no-cost, assignable option for a specified land site, which would be assigned to the successful offeror, who would then construct a building on the site that would be leased to GSA for occupancy by the FBI. However, GSA was unsuccessful in its efforts to acquire a no-cost assignable option for any of the land sites preferred by the FBI, and on March 16, GSA received a request from the FBI to move forward with prospective offerors submitting their own sites. GSA thus amended the Phase I SFO on June 19 to allow developers to offer their own sites with their Phase II proposals. COS at 1. The Phase II SFO required offerors to provide land site, technical, and price proposals. The SFO specified that the offerors' proposed land sites were required to meet certain minimum requirements in order to be considered responsive to the solicitation, as follows: 1.7 UNIQUE LAND SITES REQUIREMENTS A. As part of the Phase II offer, each invited team is required to submit one or more land sites that meet the criteria listed in Paragraph B. The Government will survey the offered sites after receipt of Phase II offers. Site elimination shall be based on Government Security personnel feedback and noncompliance with the minimum site requirements. GSA will not evaluate submitted proposals that do not meet the stated criteria. B. Sites must comply with the following minimum requirements:[1] * * * * * 5. Site not located in industrial areas, near oil tanks, or adjacent to gas stations. 7. Traffic in/around the site should be limited and a low volume of street traffic should pass in front/around the proposed site. 12.