DBB – NSF Ice Core Facility

Pre-Solicitation Synopsis -  Design-Bid-Build

National Science Foundation (NSF) 

Construction of the New Ice Core Facility

Notice Type:Synopsis

Date: 27 April 2023

Region: Region 8

City: Lakewood, Colorado 80225

Classification Code: Y1HZ - Construction Of Government-Owned Government-Operated (GOGO) Environmental Laboratories

Project: National Science Foundation (NSF) New Ice Core Facility

Solicitation Number: 47PJ0023R0069

Estimated Solicitation Response Date: June 13, 2023

Small Business Set-Aside: None

NAICS Code: 236220 - Commercial and Institutional Building Construction with a small business size standard of $45.0 million

Estimated Magnitude: $10 to $15 Million

ContractingOfficer: Joseph Dorsey - 8PQA 

ContractSpecialist: Christie Vandendries - 8PQA 

PhoneNumber: (720) 431-0386

Email: Joseph.Dorsey@gsa.gov 

Contracting Office: Rocky Mountain Region

Public Building Service

Acquisition Division (8PQ)

P.O. Box 25546

Denver Federal Center, Building 41

Lakewood, CO 80225-0546

Building Type: Federal Office Building

Historic Structure: No

Client Agency: National Science Foundation

Project Size: Approximately 20,000 SF

Parking Spaces: N/A

Applicable Funding: Funds Are Available

Geographic Limitation: Denver Federal Center, Lakewood, CO

The General Services Administration (GSA) intends to procure design-bid-build construction services to construct a new facility which incorporates refrigerated storage, laboratory/processing space, and support areas for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to store and process ice cores from the NSF Arctic and Antarctic study programs.

Project Description:

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Public Buildings Service, Region 8, Rocky Mountain Region is seeking highly qualified General Contractor (GC) firms interested in participating in an opportunity to construct a new facility which incorporates a refrigerated storage, laboratory/processing space, and support areas for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to store and process ice cores from the NSF Arctic and Antarctic study programs on the Denver Federal Center (DFC) grounds located in Lakewood, CO for the National Science Foundation. The project design has been finalized by an Architect and Engineering (A/E) firm. The project site occupies approximately 20,000 SF and is located within Building 810 (CO0624) at the Denver Federal Center near the intersection of 8th St and Main Ave. The NSF Ice Core Facility (ICF) will be located in the northwest of the main entrance in the warehouse area directly north of the existing ICF. 

The Denver Federal Center (DFC) is located on the former Denver Ordnance Plant in Lakewood Colorado, and includes 44 Federal buildings of office, warehouse, lab and special use space totaling four million square feet of rental space on 623 acres. There are 28 different Federal agencies on site, making it the largest concentration of Federal agencies outside of Washington D.C. One of the major employers at the Denver Federal Center is the GSA. The GSA is responsible for delivering much of the space requirements of Federal agencies, and provides national leadership, policy direction and standards in the areas of architecture, engineering, urban development, sustainable design, fine arts, historic preservation, construction services and project management

The DFC’s new ICF for the NSF will be located in the northwest of the main entrance in the warehouse area directly north of the existing ICF. The warehouse is currently shared by various tenants including some space directly to the West of the proposed location that is currently occupied by another USGS program. Building 810 was built in the mid-1960’s and was originally used as a Federal Clearinghouse Warehouse with concrete floors and barrel-vaulted ceilings. Building 810 has housed the original NSF-ICF since 1993.

The project includes space for NSF and USGS to jointly run this facility and will serve to replace the old NSF-ICF. The plan for this area is to continue running the proposed NSF-ICF for another 30 years.

Scope of Work:

The GSA is tasked with providing a new facility on the Denver Federal Center grounds for the NSF. The existing facility, currently located in Building 810, is outdated and no longer meets the needs for this type of cold storage facility. The new Ice Core Facility is envisioned as a facility that is an innovative cold storage facility designed to be highly reliable, meeting mission critical building system needs and redundancy. This facility contains irreplaceable ice core samples and as such, redundancy is a key component of the project. Further, the completed facility will foster creativity, collaboration and innovation for the scientific community on and around the DFC campus.

Project goals and objectives are:

• The GC is to construct an innovative cold storage (-40 degrees) facility.
• Analysis and optimization of thermal panels.
• Construct a highly reliable, mission critical building system.
• Construct a facility with redundancy in mission critical building systems. 
• Construct a facility with efficient  refrigeration life cycle costs with the firm providing analysis and utilizing energy conserving technologies

NAICS:  The NAICS code for this procurement is 236220 - Commercial and Institutional Building Construction

Set-Aside:  The Government does not intend to set-aside the requirement for small business concerns however will be considering firm’s socio-economic status in its evaluation of offers.

Contract Type:  The contract is anticipated to be awarded as a Firm-Fixed Price design-bid-build construction contract.  

Selection Process:  

The Government is conducting an unrestricted (full and open without exclusion of sources in accordance with FAR Part 6.1--Full and Open Competition), and is using source selection procedures in FAR Part 15 to evaluate proposal packages. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 36, and other regulatory guidance, this project will obtain the Design-Bid-Build General Contractor firm that offers the Best Value to the Government to perform construction services for the upcoming Ice Core Storage facility. The design is complete and now requires a firm to provide the construction for the new National Science Foundation Ice Core Storage Facility.  This project is located at the Denver Federal Center (DFC) in Lakewood, CO. The offerors, in accordance with the evaluation factors below, will be required to demonstrate their capabilities via experience, past performance, and subcontractor management. The Government will be observing the following within the aforementioned evaluation factors:

• innovative, cold storage facilities;
• analysis and optimization of thermal panels; 
• highly reliable mission critical building systems (mechanical, electrical, controls); and 
• redundancy in mission critical building systems.

The new facility is envisioned as a facility to demonstrate how buildings can be acquired at a competitive first-cost and lifecycle cost, and through integrated design, how buildings can reduce performance risks to the owner and constructor, while not sacrificing function and design criteria. Further, the completed facility will foster creativity, collaboration and innovation for the scientific community on and around the DFC campus.

The Government will make a selection based on the proposal that represents the best value.

Total Evaluated Price: Offerors will be required to submit pricing for the following areas of the work to complete the project that is described in the forthcoming  solicitation: i) CLIN 0001 – Construction Services (firm-fixed price); ii) CLIN 0002 – Shelving Option; and  iii) CLIN 0003 – Entry Arches Option.

The Government will evaluate this pricing, and the sum of CLIN 0001 and all Options for the Total Evaluated Price. Offers with pricing that is unreasonable, unrealistic, or unbalanced may be rejected as unacceptable and ineligible for award. The price evaluation for offers will be to determine the lowest price offer that is reasonable, realistic, and balanced.

The Government source selection evaluation board members will evaluate the following factors (Note factors may be subject to change):

GO/NO-GO FACTORS:  The following criteria may be evaluated on a “go/no-go” basis.  Offerors not meeting all of the following go/no-go factors will be eliminated from further consideration.  The CO will make the initial determination as to the Offeror’s acceptability, and submit only those offers meeting the “go” factors to the Evaluation Board (EB) for evaluation. 

1.  Submission of a small business subcontracting plan 

Note:The Go/No Go factor only applies to other than small business concerns. 

Factor 1 - Offeror’s Experience (40%)

This factor considers the extent of the offeror’s experience with 1) Cold Storage Projects for the offerer completed as the prime contractor; and 2) Firm’s Construction Experience for a project over $10 million. 

Factor 2 - Technical Approach (35%)

This factor considers the offeror’s proposed technical approach in its DBB delivery method approach covering the construction phase services in the scope of work to meet the contract requirements.

Factor 3 - Offeror's Past Performance (20%)

This factor considers the offeror’s Past Performance on projects submitted under Factor 1. 

Factor 4 - Socio-Economic Status (5%)

This factor considers the Socio Economic Status of each firm including: Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB) (including 8(a) certified); Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB & EDWOSB), HUBZone, and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB); Small businesses; and Other than small businesses. 

Document Availability:  The solicitation will be available for electronic download from the System for Award Management website at https://www.sam.gov . The download will be available at no charge. All documents are subject to appropriate guidelines, protocols, and procedures to control sensitive but unclassified information.

Other Information:  All interested vendors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM). Potential offerors should refer to the solicitation package regarding instructions for registration in SAM. 

This contract will be procured under FAR Part 36. The government will not allow payment for travel, living expenses, computer time or hookups for the prime or the consultants during the selection process.  

Note: This announcement is not requesting any submissions, this is only a pre-solicitation announcement ahead of the Request for Proposal release. No action is required.