Environmental Monitoring for Art Preservation

The Utah Division of Purchasing, on behalf of the Cultural and Community Engagement Division of Arts & Museums (UA&M), is issuing a Notice of Intent to Award a Contract Without Engaging in a Standard Procurement Process for Environmental Monitoring for Art Preservation. This is a trial use contract for a new or innovative procurement item justified under the Utah Procurement Code, with a posting date of February 7, 2026, and a response deadline of February 13, 2026. The procurement seeks to implement a 24-month trial period contract to transition approximately 8-10 Utah cultural heritage sites from reactive to proactive preservation practices through the deployment of wireless sensing hardware. The scope of work includes installation of approximately 40 Smart Collection Sensors and Gateways utilizing LoRaWAN technology capable of measuring temperature (0.1°C accuracy), relative humidity (1% accuracy), light, ultraviolet radiation, and shock, integrated with a centralized cloud-based dashboard providing 15-minute interval reporting. Key deliverables include museum-grade sensing equipment with full warranties, unlimited user licenses for the Conserv Cloud platform, aggregated risk assessment reports, four annual training sessions (eight total across the contract period), and conservator-backed customer support with a 1-business-day response time. Critical milestones require hardware delivery by month 2, network connectivity confirmation by month 3, completion of site staff onboarding by month 4, aggregated statewide data reports by month 12, and final preservation health assessments by month 24. The primary acceptance criterion is a 95% uptime reporting rate, and the system must provide data exportable in standard CSV formats; the procurement is specifically designed for sites managed by staff with limited preservation experience, requiring a turnkey solution.

The procurement identifies CONSERV as the sole-source vendor and is structured to allow for challenges from interested and qualified vendors who can demonstrate alternative sources or comparable products meeting the specified requirements. Vendors wishing to contest this sole-source award must submit detailed documentation during the public notice period demonstrating competing sources and providing proof of comparable or superior products with cost comparisons of transitional expenses. All respondents must certify compliance with Utah Code 63G-27 et seq. regarding boycott prohibitions, specifically certifying they are not engaged in economic boycotts or boycotts of the State of Israel and will not engage in such boycotts during the contract term. The contract will be awarded as an agency contract with a two-year term and no renewal options, with an estimated total project budget of $50,000 for the two-year trial period and no freight costs included. Vendors may submit claims of business confidentiality for proprietary information, trade secrets, and commercial financial information by submitting both redacted and non-redacted versions of proposals in accordance with Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA) and Utah Code sections 63G-2-305 and 63G-2-309. If no valid challenges are received following the public notice period, the Division of Purchasing may proceed with awarding the contract to CONSERV.