Construction of Chilled Water Replacement and Site Utility Improvements (Phase A2) at the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) campus in West Haven, CT

Title: 

Construction of Chilled Water Replacement and Site Utility Improvements (Phase A2) at the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) campus in West Haven, CT.

Description:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District (CENAE) will be issuing a Best Value Trade-Off (BVTO) Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Design-Bid-Build construction of the Chilled Water Plant Replacement and Site Utility Improvements at the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) campus in West Haven, CT.  This will be an unrestricted RFP procurement.  The NAICS code for this procurement is 236220 with a size standard of $45M. The estimated construction cost is between $40,000,000 and $115,000,000.00. The project is planned to be issued on or about August 2026 with award anticipated late-Spring 2027.  The period of performance is 3-1/2 years.    

Project Information:

VA Connecticut Healthcare System (VACHS) was officially formed in 1995 with the integration of the VA medical centers in West Haven and Newington.  VACHS serves Veterans in Connecticut and southern New England.  The West Haven campus, located at 950 Campbell Avenue in West Haven, CT is a tertiary care facility classified as a Clinical Referral Level One Facility.

The VA uses Strategic Capital Investment Planning (SCIP) process to prioritize construction projects that are needed to meet changing demand for services, improve aging infrastructure, and to keep pace with changing technology and models of care.  The VACHS developed a Business Case as part of the 2018 (updated in 2020) SCIP process in support of a new surgical and clinical space construction project to address critical deficiencies related to utility failures, infection prevention issues, patient and staff safety concerns, and space constraints.  The project, titled Construct New Surgical and Clinical Space Tower, Demolish Bldg. 7, 8, 8.5, and 9 (SCIP Project Number VHA1-689-2018-33888) and VA specific project number 689-040 represents a multi-phase, complex VA Major Construction project which is intended to upgrade and consolidate existing clinical and direct patient care spaces to current standards of patient care.

Phase A2 consists of the demolition and replacement of the existing chilled water plant and construction of site utility upgrades which will improve the campus infrastructure by providing new and redundant utilities to serve the campus as well as new chilled water plant with sufficient capacity to support existing campus and new Surgical/Clinical Tower loads.

The scope of the chilled water plant replacement consists of the demolition of the existing chilled water plant (building 16a) and construction of a new multi-story chilled water plant to include chillers, cooling towers, pumps, and all associated mechanical and electrical equipment.  Due to the close proximity of the existing fuel tank farm adjacent to the existing chilled water plant, a new fuel tank farm will need to be constructed as part of the project, which primarily serves the central boiler plant, requiring close coordination with the medical center and ongoing related projects.

The scope of the site utility upgrades consists of the replacement and upgrade of the existing fire protection water main and the domestic water main from Campbell Avenue to Building 15.  Site utility upgrades also include providing utility main loops of chilled water supply and return, steam supply, condensate return, domestic water supply, and fire protection water supply which will originate from the new chilled water plant and back-feed to Building 1.  The work also includes the installation of redundant electrical feeder from the utility demarcation point to Building 19 and coordination with the local electrical utility provider to provide further electrical redundancy offsite as well.  In addition, new water storage tanks will be constructed.

This project involves civil/site, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, geotechnical, and architectural disciplines. The project must also comply with the DVA’s Physical Security Resiliency Design Requirements (PSRDM).  It is expected that the chilled water plant will be constructed to meet USGBC LEED Silver certification.  The work is located adjacent to and within an active Medical Center campus which will be operational at all times.  Impact to on-going operations must be kept to a minimum and carefully coordinated with the Contracting Officer and VAMC staff.  In addition, the work area is constrained due to the active medical center operations which will limit laydown and storage areas during construction.

This is not a request for proposal at this time.  The solicitation requirements and contract documents to include instructions for submission and the response date will be available on or about August 2026. Neither telephonic, mailed, nor faxed requests for hard copies of this solicitation will be accepted.  The solicitation will only be available online; in order to view the solicitation offerors must access the System for Award Management website (www.sam.gov).  In order to download the solicitation, offerors must access the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment (https://piee.eb.mil/). All responsible sources may submit a bid which shall be considered by the USACE New England District.  Additional questions may be emailed to the Contract Specialist at Kayla.Gonsalves@usace.army.mil.  This notice does not commit the U.S. Government to contract for any supply or service.