36C26025R0038.docx

Special Notice

GENERAL INFORMATION

ATTN: V4CONT

1601 E. Fourth Plain Blvd Bldg.17, Suite B428 Vancouver WA 98661

POINT OF CONTACT*

Contracting Team Wendy Duval & Helen Woods wendy.duval@va.gov No telephonic inquiries will be accepted Facsimile response is not supported

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

DESCRIPTION

Special Notice

This is a Special Notice for an Architect/Engineer (A-E) requirement for Engineering Services to support Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 20 facilities located in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

Projects may include new construction, remodeling, alteration, repair, maintenance work, and may include construction inspection and project surveillance services. Projects could include various combinations of disciplines.

The Government anticipates awarding up to 8 firm-fixed-price in a multiple award task order contracts (MATOC) indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts for up to a five-year ordering period (one-year base and four one-year option periods). The minimum guarantee of each IDIQ is $2,500.00. The maximum ordering amount is a shared capacity of $65,000,000.00 over the total possible ordering period.

This notice is being issued as a total-set aside for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses under NAICS 541330. The size standard is $25,500,000.00.

All firms submitting a response to this notice shall be registered in SAM.gov and be a small business for NAICS 541330 and be a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business with the Small Business Administration at time of receipt of submission and prior to award. Submissions that do not meet this requirement shall not be considered an eligible submission and shall not be considered further.

In accordance with FAR 52.219-14 and VAAR 852.219-75, by submission of a Standard Form (SF) 330 and if selected as a most highly qualified firm and issued an IDIQ, the firm agrees that in performance of the IDIQ and subsequent task orders, the contractor will not pay more than 50 percent of the amount paid by the Government for contract performance to subcontracts that are not similarly situation (SDVOSB) entities. A joint venture agrees that, in performance of the contract, the applicable percentage specified above will be performed by the aggregate of the joint venture participants.

Interested firms are invited to submit their SF330 pursuant to the instructions and criteria below by no later than 1200pm Pacific on 22 April 2025 to Wendy.Duval@va.gov and Helen.Woods@va.gov.

Questions may be submitted up until 0800am Pacific 15 April 2025 to Wendy.Duval@va.gov and Helen.Woods@va.gov. Questions received will be answered via attachment to this special notice labeled “Questions and Answers” with the date of the update that will be posted to Contract Opportunities only.

SELECTION CRITERIA

All firms submitting a response to this request shall be registered in SAM.gov and be a small business for NAICS 541330 and be a certified Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business by the Small Business Administration at time of receipt of submission. Firms who do not meet these two requirements shall not be considered eligible and will not be considered further.

The selection criteria for eligible submissions to this solicitation are listed below in descending order of importance.

Criteria 1-6 are primary selection criteria.

Criteria 7 is a secondary selection criterion that will only be used as a “tiebreaker” if firms are essentially technically equal under criteria 1-6.

CRITERIA 1 – PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Resumes shall be provided for qualified professional personnel in Section E of the SF330 for the following disciplines. Unless noted specifically, personnel can be in-house or through consultants. The team of qualified professional personnel included in this SF330 will be the only personnel able to be used to obtain task orders under a MATOC if a MATOC is awarded to the firm. Any resultant contract will include FAR 52.244-4, Subcontractors and Outside Associates and Consultants (Architect-Engineer Services) (Aug 1998), which will apply to all personnel submitted under this criterion. Firms will be required to give at least 30-day notice to the IDIQ Contracting Officer to allow VA sufficient time to review and determine if the substitution will or will not be acceptable.

· Project Management

· Master Planning

· Quality Assurance/Quality Control Management

· Architecture

· Structural Engineering

· Electrical Engineering

· Mechanical and Controls Engineering

· Plumbing Engineering

· Civil Engineering

· Sanitary Engineering

· Transportation Engineering

· Fire Protection Engineering

· Geotechnical/Soils Engineering

· Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CADD) and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)

· Specification Writing

· Cost Estimating (Third-Party)

· Construction Inspection

· Environmental Engineering

· Land Surveying

· Graphic Design

· Archaeology

The selected firm must have, either in-house or through consultants, an architect or engineer in each discipline listed above that is professionally registered and provide documentation of that professional registration.

The evaluation will consider education, certifications, training, professional registration, overall and relevant experience, and longevity with the firm.

Failure to identify a license, registration, and/or certification will result in a presumption that none exists for the individual the resume is offered for.

CRITERIA 2- SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCE

Knowledge and experience with design in the following areas:

· Construction Design

· Utility Infrastructure Design

· Civil Works Design

· Environmental Design

· Experience and knowledge of design with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the following disciplines:

· Mechanical

· Plumbing

· Electrical

· Civil Works

· Seismic

· Buy American Act/Trade Agreement Act

Experience designing projects for the VA, particularly Veterans Health Administration, including familiarity with the VA Technical Information Library and included Design Manuals.

Demonstrated Experience with State Natural Resources Offices, Environmental Protection Offices and Historic Preservation Offices for the following:

· Environmental assessments

· Permits

· Water/wastewater/storm water projects requiring approvals from appropriate offices and regulating bodies.

Demonstrated knowledge and experience of current federal agency policies, guidance, and regulation for preparation of all levels of NEPA documentation including Environmental Assessments, and Impact Statements, construction storm water and Section 404 permitting, biological and natural resource studies, and inventories, performing cultural resource monitoring and documentation, feasibility studies for pollution prevention and energy conservation projects.

Knowledge and experience with the following Acts: Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Clean Air and Water Acts.

CRITERIA 3- CAPACITY TO ACCOMPLISH THE WORK

Firms must demonstrate their ability to meet schedule, scope, and budget of multiple projects simultaneously for an IDIQ by providing appropriate teams or crews to perform those tasks such as surveying, data collection, design effort and construction period services.

CRITERIA 4- PAST PERFORMANCE

Past performance on contracts with Government Agencies and Private Industry will be evaluated.

Evaluations will be determined from the Contractor Performance Assessment Rating System (CPARS) and other sources such as past performance questionnaires (PPQs), contacting entities who have done business with the firm previously, and other reasonable avenues.

Firms will be evaluated based on past performance with Government agencies and private industry in terms of work quality, innovation, compliance with schedules, cost control, overall safety record, and stakeholder/customer satisfaction.

The evaluation may be based on information provided through CPARS, PPQS, and may include other information provided by the firm, customer inquiries, other Government databases and other information available to the Government including information from the points of contact provided by the offeror and from VA staff’s knowledge of and experience with the firm. The evaluation will be based only on past performance information from the previous six years in accordance with FAR 42.1503(g).

Failure to provide requested data, accessible points of contact, or valid contact information may result in the VA being unable to verify/validate the information provided and may result in a lower adjectival rating.

Firms with no past performance experience will be rated neutral.

CRITERIA 5- KNOWLEDGE OF LOCALITY

Knowledge of design and construction methods of VA projects in the states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon that is VISN 20’s Area of Operations.

Provide a written narrative of the firm’s plan to be able to support the region, to include limiting travel costs.

Knowledge of design and construction in areas with: high seismicity ratings, a low water table, winter conditions (design of facilities and utilities considering wind loads, frost depths for foundations and utilities, freeze-thaw conditions, roof design for falling ice/snow over doors and walkways and design of mechanical systems for a range of temperatures varying from cold to extreme heat), areas with marine climates, areas with high sustained winds, and areas with expansive soils or constraints imposed by threatened and endangered species or wetlands.

Knowledge of construction SDVOSB contractor availability, especially in remote locations such as Anchorage, Alaska, White City, Oregon or Walla Walla, Washington as it relates to construction costs and construction workforce availability.

SELECTION CRITERIA 6- SDVOSB SUBCONTRACTING

Responses will be evaluated on the extent to which they identify and commit to the use of service-disabled veteran-owned small business, veteran-owned small businesses, and other types of small businesses as subcontractors.

Responses will include the certification required by VAAR 852.219-75 VA Notice of Limitations on Subcontracting – Certificate of Compliance for Services and Construction, specifically for services, as part of this identification and commitment. If this information is not readily available in the proposal, the VA will inquire if the certification was included in the proposal. If the offeror failed to include the required certification, they will be removed from further consideration.

SECONDARY (OPTIONAL) CRITERIA 7- GEOGRAPHIC PROXIMITY

This criterion will only be utilized in the event of a tie in rating between two or more firms and will not be used if a tie does not occur.

Proximity of the principal design office to the VISN 20 facilities located in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.

In the event of two firms being rated technically equal and it is determined a tie needs to be broken, a Google Maps search for driving directions will be done to calculate the number of miles between the firm’s identified location and each individual facility. The numbers will be compared at face value. The firm located closer to more facilities will be rated higher to break the tie.

The firm is encouraged to clearly identify the principal design office that will support the VISN 20 facilities projects if there are multiple locations. If employees of the firm are located remotely, VA is not requesting individual personal addresses.

SUBMISSION FORMAT

One (1) electronic submission in PDF format is required for each firm providing a submission.

Submitting firms shall include their SAM UEI along with their firm’s contact information in block 5 of SF330, Part I, Section B.

A SF330 Part II is required for each branch office of the prime firm and any subconsultants that will have a key role in the proposed contract.

Firms shall use sans-serif font that is clear and easy to read such as Arial, with a minimum font size of 12.

Where page limits are indicated, excess pages will not be read or considered. Blank sheets or tabs separating the sections within the SF330 will not count toward any page limitation.

Where example limits are indicated, excess examples will not be read or considered. The organizational chart (Section D) and the matrix (Section G) are the only information that can be provided in other than standard “letter” size (8 1/2 inches by 11 inches) pages.

All personnel who a resume is submitted for shall be shown on the organizational chart.

Block G-26 should include the firm the person is associated with in addition to the name.

Indication of favorable performance ratings, awards, and repeat clientele is recommended in Section H.

Section H shall include the estimated percentage of involvement of the proposed team. It is the Prime firm’s responsibility to comply with FAR 52.219-14’s requirement that at least 50% of the work be self-performed or subcontracted only to similarly situation entities A similarly situation entity is defined, based on the set-aside for this requirement, as a SDVOSB.

PAGE AND EXAMPLE LIMITS

Section E: Resumes shall not exceed two (2) pages each.

Section F: A maximum of ten (10) projects including the prime and consultants will be reviewed in Section F. No more than one (1) page should be used for each project. A task order executed under an IDIQ contract is a project.

Section H: Shall not exceed fifteen (15) pages.

DISCUSSIONS

After initial evaluation, at least the top eight most highly rated firms shall be admitted to discussions. Instructions will be provided at this time to firms admitted to discussions. After discussions, a final determination will be made on the eight firms who will be rated most highly and sent the instructions requesting a price proposal.

See attached document: PPQ Engineering Services MATOC IDIQ.

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