Agenda Pre-proposal conf minutes 0063.doc

Pre-Proposal Conference Agenda Solicitation GS-07P-08-HHD-0063

May 14, 2008

12:30 - 2 pm

Room 12B09

1. Project Name, Number and Location:

Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity Construction Services

Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection

Nationwide

GS-07P-08-HHD-0063

2. Introduction:

Tony Kemp, GSA, Contracting Officer

Judy Parnell, GSA, Contract Specialist

Sandy Babcock, GSA, Contract Specialist

Roll Call of participants – Participants are requested to e-mail to judy.parnell@gsa.gov their names, titles, and name of the firm they represent so that we will have an accurate record for our files of all attendees.

3. Attendees:

Robert J. Gudz - Einhorn Yaffe Prescott Architecture and Engineering P.C.

John Greenwell – Grunley Construction

Jay Manik – CDM Federal Programs Corporation

Jeff Pearson – Ahtna Government Services Corp.

G. Bryant Kroutch – Arrowhead Contracting, Inc.

Jim Hutton – CCI Group, LLC

Britney Romo – CCI Group, LLC

J P Patel – P&S Construction

Mike Gearan – P&S Construction

Michael Keel – Vanguard Contractors

Jeff Zellner – The Hartman & Majewski Design Group, Inc.

Joe Craig – The Hartman & Majewski Design Group, Inc.

Tia Ennis – SESI Group

Robert Martinez - Flintco

Melissa Stroud – Flintco

Michael Reynoso – Federal Construction Group

Rick Hale – South Bay EDC

Linda Dubis – Marshall Dubis Construction

Robert Goods – EYP Architectural Engineering

Mike Hoxie – Tetra Tech ECI Bill Medley – Dynamic Corporation

Paul Grimes – SAIC

Tim Stewart – Conti Federal Services, Inc.

Michael Keel – Vanguard Contractors

Eddie Medina – Vanguard Contractors

Steve Ortwein - Ross Group

Ryan Crouch – Arrowhead Contracting

Wade Perrow – WPC

Dana Sumwar – Ahtna Government Services Corp.

A. Villareal – Mapco, Inc.

Amanda Babb – Mapco, Inc.

Jeff Zellner – Design Group

Bill Craig – Design Group

Sarah Weaver – RMA Land Construction

Mike Wilson – Wilson Group

4. Meeting Purpose: This meeting is to brief offerors on the nature of the work clarify proposal requirements and answer questions submitted by prospective contractors.

No oral statement made by a Government representative during this pre-proposal conference, nor any written record of such oral statements as may be made and furnished to an offeror, will be deemed to have the effect of adding to, modifying, or otherwise varying the issued solicitation. In the event the discussions or questions raised during the pre-proposal conference indicate a need to modify the solicitation, an amendment to the solicitation will be formally issued. Such amendment to the solicitation must be acknowledged in the same manner and under the same conditions as all other written amendments to the solicitation.

5. Amendments Issued:

Pre-solicitation was posted April 1, 2008

Amendment 1 was posted April 7, 2008 to change the issue date of the solicitation from May 22, 2008 to April 22, 2008.

Amendment 2 was posted April 22, 2008 to issue the solicitation with the sample project and plans.

6. Solicitation Highlights:

Page #

· Date and Time for Receipt of Proposals

Cover sheet

· Full and Open Competition

Cover sheet

· Description of Work

· Submission of proposal

· Bonds and Insurance Requirements

· Period of Performance

· Guaranteed Minimum

· Maximum Order Limitation

· Design Build

· Suitability Determinations of Contract Employees

· Buzzsaw site

· Technical Evaluation Factors

· Price Proposal

· Bid Bond form

· Document Security Notice

· Bid Sheet for Sample Project

· Sample Project

Corrections to the solicitation:

Page 6. Change the time for receipt of offers to 3:00 p.m. The date remains unchanged.

Page 16. Paragraph 2.02. Change the GSAR reference to GSAR 552.228-70.

Page 35. The buzzsaw site should read https://projectpoint.buzzsaw.com/gsapbsr7.

Page 41. Paragraph 4.0. Add “(4) Subcontracting Plan, if applicable.”

Page 44. Paragraph 5, first sentence. Change to read “Cost or price analysis on the sample project will be used to evaluate the cost estimate or price, not only to determine whether it is reasonable, but also to determine the offeror’s understanding of the work and ability to perform.”

7. Questions:

Review of questions already received and the answers.

7.1. Q: The RFP discusses that the minimum ordering limitations per task order will be $500 up to $25 million. However, in that regard what would the Government anticipate the dollar value be for a typical task order? A: That is unknown. It will depend on a particular project and its size. Values could range from $1000 to $1 million.

7.2. Q: What is the anticipated frequency of task orders to be issued? A: Unknown. As stated above, it will depend on the number and size of projects. All projects have not been identified at this time.

7.3. Q: Will there be a penalty for not bidding task orders: A: The penalty could be termination of your contract if your firm fails to comply with terms and conditions of the contract wherein you repeatedly do not bid on task orders.

7.4: Q: What is anticipated number of IDIQ awards (i.e., how may contractors will be selected to participate in the program)? A: This information is not available for public release at this time.

7.5. Q: What is the total dollar value of the IDIQ program? A: For this procurement, it could be up to $125 million or less over a five-year period.

7.6. Q: Please confirm a bid bond in the amount of $200,000 is required? A: A bid guarantee in the amount of $200,000 is required.

7.7. Q: There is no mention of the location for the sample project, has a location for the sample project been determined? A: A location will not be identified. It is a generic specification, but for purposes of the wage determinations, assume the work will be performed in Spokane County, Washington. Also assume, for access to the site, staging materials and storage of materials, that the location is a typical border station.

7.8. Q: Is the sample project to be priced using standard or non-standard work hours? A: Standard work hours.

7.9. Q: Per the bid schedule provided with the RFP and escalation factor is being requested. Can further clarification be provided regarding the escalation factor, i.e. escalation of the sample project, G&A in general, etc.? A: The escalation rate should be on the total project, including G&A.

7.10. Q: Per the sample project documents, the Government is supplying the RPF and annunciator. Can product data, the vendor and/or cut sheets be provided on these items? A: We do not have any data on the Government furnished equipment. You will have to rely on what’s in the statement of work for the sample project.

7.11. Q: There doesn’t appear to be any liquidated damages associated with the sample project. Will there be any associated with the sample project? A: No liquidated damages will be associated with the sample project.

7.12. Q: It appears that the performance period per Appendix F is 90 calendar days. Please confirm this is the correct performance period. A: The performance period is 90 calendar days.

8. Questions asked during the conference:

8.1 Q: Is the $125 million on the IDIQ or that per awardee? A: That is for our whole program. So it might be over five or six contracts or more.

8.2. Q: Are you planning on bundling any of these sites regionally together for efficiency? A: We have been putting those that are in the same general geographic area together. Maybe 3 or 4 locations if the work is the same at all of them.

8.3. Q Would the prime contractor be required to hold a general building license for each particular state where the deliver order is located? A: Architects have to be licensed in the State, but the construction contractors do have to meet the licensing requirements since the work is on Federal property..

8.4. Q: Question on Factor 1 experience and performance. We are looking at the past performance for similar projects, is this based on the samples projects that should be similar project that we are comparing things too? A: We are looking at a project that is at least $100,000 and 10,000 square feet. So it could be similar to this one or it could be alterations to an existing facility, particularly alterations to a facility that is in use at the time. Those are the type of projects that will be coming under this program. Need to stress that solicitation asks for a minimum of 10,000 square feet with a cost of $100,000 or greater. Those two requirements have to be met. They cannot be less than those.

8.5. Q: Would like to get clarification on that? In other words, an RPM site if we performed that one and we would like to use that as our past performance experience, there is not a 10,000 square foot RPM site that I’m familiar with. So we wouldn’t be able to use any RPM sites for past performance? A: The facility is 10,000 square feet, so just go with that.

8.6. Q: To continue that question, we completed a seizure vault for border patrol and it is less than 10,000 feet and well over $100,000, so you can’t use a project that was specifically completed for border patrol? A: We are only trying to see what experience you have had in large construction projects, complicated projects. It does not have to be RPM work or anything you have done construction wise where you have done alterations, repairs or remodeling or what have you with that type of square footage and dollar value. We are not looking for stuff done specifically on border patrols or with RPMs in the past. We just want to see what your experience is in construction overall

8.7 Q: In regards to the sample problem, drawing WS0047450 sheet five shows an RPM assembly for the RPM installation. Is this item supplied as GFE or is it to be provided by the contractor? A: All of this will be GFE.

8.8. Q: Will the sample project be conducted on government property and if so can we assume to taxes or permits will not be required? A: Permits from you won’t be required, but there is a requirement for permits that we are working on with each state. It will be taken care of before you hit the site. You don’t have to apply for permits.

8.9. Q: Clarify further on that – does it flow down to environmental permits or whatever? A: Yes it does, but we are getting those. The contractor will not be responsible for anything like that.

8.10. Q: In follow-on to that, will these projects be tax exempt? A: For this sample project, assume there are no taxes.

8.11. Q: Can you elaborate on how you intend to evaluate our technical approach for the sample project using our price that we provide with the sample project? A: The price will not be evaluated along with the technical. The price is there because we need to evaluate the reasonableness of your price proposal. The technical evaluation is strictly on your past performance, experience and other work that you have done and on the scenarios that we asked you to respond to, how you would handle those scenarios as part of your management approach.

8.12. Q: The reason we asked that question is that in the RFP the instructions infer that you are going to use our price to evaluate our technical approach. A: No. We look at price in regards to the technical approach is to determine that you understand the project. If your price was way out of line with everyone else then we would have to assume you did not understand the project.

8.13. Q: Will winners of the national contract be allowed to do work in the Pacific Northwest, given that there is a Pacific Northwest regional contract being issued?

A: Our intent is that anything that comes up in those states, would be offered to the 8(a) firms that are awarded contracts under that solicitation. In the event that they could not perform we might ask contractors under this particular solicitation to perform the work. That would be if they are overloaded or for some reason could not perform the work.

8.14. Q: Given your answer, does GSA intend to issue 8(a) contracts for other regions within the United States? A: We do not know what the other GSA regions are doing, but the GSA Region 7 here in Ft. Worth will not be issuing additional 8(a) contracts for IDIQ Construction to support DHS at this time.

8.15: Q: Will there be any clearance requirements or requirements for US citizens for labor? A: Yes that is why we pointed out the suitability clearance process. You employees will have to pass a suitability clearance to get onsite to work. They must either be US citizens or registered legal aliens working in this country.

8.16: Q: Given that this contract is coming out of area 7 in Texas and I understand it is a nationwide contract, is there any indication at this point on which regions most of the task orders may be coming out of? A: They will be coming out of this region. We will be placing the task orders against these contracts.

8.17: Q: I worded that wrong. I meant where the work is going to be. A: Every program that the DHS is doing is ultimately put out to all the border stations, so you can assume that there is going to be active work going on in every region that has border stations.

8.18: Q: As follow-on to the question the gentleman just asked, approximately 4 years ago GSA had a similar proposal out for Homeland Security and quite a few of us were qualified under that project and actually went to Colorado Springs for a pre-proposal. Many people were informed that there would no work on the Southern border and only on the Northern border. There was only about 2-3 projects ever awarded to our knowledge. I’m curious as to what changes may have taken place since that time? A: What happened when those contracts were awarded is that the work that was anticipated by DHS did not materialize during that time because they were undergoing reorganization. However now they are bringing their programs on line and, we understand, there is quite a few projects coming our way. So we’re putting these new contracts in place to be able to make sure they can deliver those programs on time.

8.19. Q: This sounds like this project we are proposing on is a continuation of the other one that expired? A: Yes, it is very similar.

8.20. Q: There no page limitation on the proposal, is that correct? A: That is correct.

8.21. Q: Is there any preferences provided for SDB? A: No we will not be using any preferences.

8.22. Q: On the design build, consider in state where services are performed as far as the licensing, since there will be multiple states, working on federal property, can this be amended to any state license – like they are licensed in any state? A: The A/E will have to apply for a license in the particular state where the work is being performed

8.23. Q: On page 42, under Factor 2, could you clarify the number of key personnel you expect information on, specifically the chief and designers? A: What you are looking at are the descriptions of key personnel that are only meant as a examples. You tell us what your staffing is. This is meant just to be a example, not all inclusive, just to tell you what types of people it might be. You tell us what your staffing is made up of. Key personnel – people that would make sure these projects get accomplished.

8.24. Q: Question regarding the bid bond of $200,000? In the event that you are participating in a mentor/protégé agreement with an 8(a) firm, are you also exempt from the $200,000 bond requirement? A: All firms submitting on this proposal must provide a bid guarantee. Only 8(a) set asides are exempt from the bid guarantee requirement. (This is a change from what was discussed on the conference call).

8.25. Q: Reverse auction, do you plan on using that quite a bit? A: Probably not, but we put it in there just in case it comes on line over the next five years. Actually we don’t think it is even working right now. We put it in the solicitation as a possibility in case it does come back on line over the next five years.

After the pre-proposal conference, all questions will be formally answered in the form of an amendment to the solicitation. No further questions can be entertained after this conference since we will not have sufficient time after today to get an amendment out before the date for receipt of offers.