Building Official Services Mariner High School HVAC Renovation

The School Board of Lee County, Florida is soliciting electronic qualification statements through a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process to procure Building Official Services for the Mariner High School HVAC Renovation project located at 701 Chiquita Boulevard, Cape Coral, Florida. The procurement encompasses comprehensive building official services including plan review, permitting, inspections, construction material testing, and threshold inspections for the replacement of all air handling units, unit ventilators, exhaust fans, VAV boxes, chilled water piping, ductwork, diffusers, and installation of bi-polar ionization or equivalent indoor air quality enhancement technology across two project phases. Respondents must hold current Florida Certified Building Official licenses and demonstrate relevant experience through submission of at least three and no more than five similar projects completed within the past seven years, organizational charts with team resumes, documented project management and cost control methodologies, current and projected workload analysis, and a complete list of all School District of Lee County projects completed or in progress over the past seven years. The evaluation process consists of written response scoring weighted at 100 points assessing past experience and client references (30%), methodology and project approach with resources (44%), financials and litigation history (10%), workload and district projects (12%), and local participation (4%), followed by presentation evaluation weighted at 100 points assessing proposed project team (22%), methodology and approach with project management and timeline (40%), cost controls (15%), creativity and innovation (12%), knowledge of project site (5%), district projects (2%), and local participation (4%). Electronic qualification statements must be submitted through the Bonfire Platform before 3:00 PM EST on February 18, 2026, with a mandatory pre-submission conference and site walk-through scheduled for January 29, 2026 at 10:00 AM EST at the project location; the Selection Committee will score responses on April 9, 2026 at 10:00 AM EST. Respondents must provide three client references, comprehensive insurance documentation including workers' compensation, commercial general liability of $2,000,000 per occurrence, professional liability of $2,000,000, and automobile liability of $2,000,000 per occurrence, and three years of audited or unaudited financial statements submitted as confidential documents.

Local preference is granted to firms with a place of business within Lee County, Florida, or those providing goods or services to the School Board for three consecutive years with local personnel, equipment, and materials; no formal disadvantaged enterprise set-asides are specified, though the District is considering implementing a Supplier Diversity Program to collect voluntary information regarding minority and woman-owned business enterprise status without affecting the selection process. No incumbent contractor information is provided in the solicitation documents, and there are no specified fee structures or pricing restrictions established at this stage, as compensation will be negotiated following Board-approved ranking of qualified respondents. The target total project cost is estimated between $8 million and $12 million, with pre-construction phase services compensated as a stipulated sum amount and construction phase services compensated as a percentage of the Guaranteed Maximum Price to be established through contract amendment. The contract requires inspections within 48 hours of request, completion of all final closeout documents within 60 days of substantial completion, and compliance with federal Davis-Bacon wage requirements and Florida's State Requirements for Educational Facilities. Respondents must demonstrate good faith efforts to achieve a 10% small business enterprise participation goal for construction-related goods and services, and the project is contingent upon Department of Education approval.