MMI Capital, LLC (4MS0138)

B-419335,B-419335.2 Jan 21, 2021 Jump To FULL REPORT VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights MMI Capital, LLC (MMI), a small business of Macon, Georgia, protests the award of a lease for office space to L.D. Hancock Family, LLC (Hancock), a small business of Tupelo, Mississippi, by the General Services Administration (GSA), under request for lease proposals (RLP) No. 4MS0138. The protester challenges the agency's net present-value (NPV) price evaluation and its award determination. We deny the protest. View Decision 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:  MMI Capital, LLC File:  B-419335; B-419335.2 Date:  January 21, 2021 Hadeel N. Masseoud, Esq., and Diana Parks, Esq., Curran Legal Services Group, Inc., for the protester. Carisa L. LeClair, Esq., and Jessica Gunzel, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency. Hannah G. Barnes, Esq., and Christina Sklarew, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1.  In a procurement for a lease of office space, protest that agency engaged in unequal treatment is denied where the alleged unequal treatment, if it occurred, would not have competitively prejudiced the protester. 2.  Protest that agency performed an improper net present-value price evaluation is dismissed as untimely where the protest was filed more than ten days after the basis of protest was known or should have been known. 3.  Protest that the awardee’s proposal was ineligible for award because the awardee’s registration in the System for Award Management was inaccurate and its online registration record did not list the applicable North American Industry Classification System code is dismissed as untimely where the protest was filed more than ten days after the basis of protest was known or should have been known. DECISION MMI Capital, LLC (MMI), a small business of Macon, Georgia, protests the award of a lease for office space to L.D. Hancock Family, LLC (Hancock), a small business of Tupelo, Mississippi, by the General Services Administration (GSA), under request for lease proposals (RLP) No. 4MS0138.  The protester challenges the agency’s net present-value (NPV) price evaluation and its award determination.  We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RLP, issued on August 17, 2018, provided for the award of a 15-year lease of office space in Tupelo, Mississippi.[1]  Agency Report (AR), Exh. 1, RLP § 1.02.  GSA sought to lease 10,814 American National Standards Institute/Building Owners and Managers Association Office Area square feet (ABOA SF) of contiguous space for use by the tenant agency, the Social Security Administration.[2]  Id.; Supp. Contracting Officer’s Statement (COS) at 1.  The solicitation advised that the lease would be issued to the offeror that submitted the lowest-priced, technically acceptable lease proposal.  RLP § 4.03.  The solicitation provided that the agency would determine the lowest price by conducting a net present-value (NPV) price evaluation to reduce each offeror’s lease rate to a composite annual ABOA SF price.[3]  Id. § 4.09.  The solicitation provided a specific formula to conduct this evaluation, and the agency refers to this resulting composite annual price as the NPV rate.[4]  As advised in section 4.09 of the solicitation, the formula involved the agency taking an offeror’s fully serviced lease rate, conducting calculations to yield a gross present-value cost, and adding certain costs to that gross present-value cost, including, as relevant here, “[t]he cost of relocation of furniture, telecommunications, replications costs, and other move-related costs, if applicable.”  RLP § 4.09. GSA received offers from MMI and Hancock on November 26, 2018.  COS at 1.  On March 13, 2019, the agency amended the solicitation to request revised offers and to change certain values that offerors were required to include in their fully serviced lease rates.  As relevant here, the solicitation initially required offerors to include a tenant improvement allowance (TIA) of $37.86 per ABOA SF in their fully serviced lease rates.[5]  RLP § 3.07.  The amendment reduced the TIA from $37.86 per ABOA SF to $37.392 per ABOA SF and changed the total TIA value from $409,418.04 to $404,357.09.  COS at 2; AR, Exh. 3, Amendment No. 1 to RLP. Best and final offers were due on March 15, 2019.  Protest, Exh. 2, Agency Protest Decision at 2.  MMI and Hancock each submitted a lease proposal that was found to be technically acceptable.  COS at 2.  After conducting the NPV price evaluation, the agency found that Hancock’s NPV rate was [REDACTED] per ABOA SF, and MMI’s NPV rate was [REDACTED] per ABOA SF.  Supp. COS at 2; Supp. AR, Exh. 1, MMI Present Value Analysis at 1; AR, Exh.