Regional Digital Orthoimagery Acquisition and Impervious Surface Change Mapping

The City of Waco, Texas, in partnership with McLennan County and the McLennan County Emergency Assistance District (MCEAD 9-1-1), is requesting proposals for regional digital orthoimagery acquisition and impervious surface change mapping under RFP 2026-050, with proposals due September 25, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Central Time.

The scope encompasses acquisition of high-resolution, 4-band digital orthoimagery at 6-inch ground sample distance covering approximately 1,297 square miles of McLennan County (1,307 DO4Q tiles), plus production of impervious and pervious surface datasets for Waco city limits and a half-mile buffer (approximately 146.5 square miles). Imagery must be captured during the early 2027 winter leaf-off window between January 1 and February 28, 2027, with an optimal collection window of January 15 through February 15. Deliverables include raw orthoimagery tiles, seamless county mosaics, impervious surface change datasets, vector indexes, metadata files, and a web-based quality assurance review tool in multiple formats: uncompressed GeoTIFF, MrSID MG4, and JPEG2000 with specified compression ratios and quality standards. The vendor must obtain all necessary airspace clearances, including those for Prohibited Area P-49 within McLennan County. The City retains unrestricted, perpetual ownership of all deliverables with no proprietary or resale rights retained by the vendor. Project completion is expected within 180 calendar days from contract execution.

Evaluation criteria are technical project plan (30 points), communication and schedule (25 points), product samples (20 points), and pricing structure (25 points) for 100 total points. Each proposal must be accompanied by a bid bond or certified check equal to 5 percent of the total proposal amount. Pricing must exclude federal excise and state sales taxes. Questions are due September 11, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. Central Time. The City Council must approve contracts exceeding $100,000, with final selection notification expected by October 30, 2026. Bid opening will occur via Zoom at 2:01 p.m. on September 25.