Liberty Street East Associates
Highlights
Liberty Street East Associates protests the award of a lease to Ashford/Warren Associates, LP under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. R9-6-1, issued by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for office and related space in Warren, Pennsylvania. Liberty asserts that the agency's technical evaluation of its proposal was flawed.
B-299486.3, Liberty Street East Associates, June 15, 2007
Decision
Liberty Street East AssociatesRobert P. Yoder for the protester.
Elin M. Dugan, Esq., Department of Agriculture, for the agency.
Paul E. Jordan, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
1. Where agency report rebuts protester's allegations with regard to price evaluation, and protester fails to respond to agency's rebuttal in its comments on the agency's report, issues are considered abandoned and will not be considered; abandoned issues also will not be considered when reasserted in supplemental comments, as Bid Protest Regulations do not contemplate piecemeal development of protest issues.
2. Protest allegations challenging agency's evaluation of protester's proposal are denied where alleged evaluation errors did not result in competitive prejudice to protester; even if protester's evaluation score were increased to level asserted by protester, awardee's score would remain higher and, when combined with its lower price, would still reasonably support award.
DECISION
Liberty Street East Associates protests the award of a lease to Ashford/Warren Associates, LP under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. R9-6-1, issued by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for office and related space in
The SFO sought a minimum of 20,300 usable square feet for USDA, for use by the Allegheny National Forest Supervisor's Office. All offers were evaluated under five factors--site; building image and physical characteristics; efficient layout and interior space; high performance features; and price. The technical factors combined were equal in weight to price. Award was to be made to the firm whose offer was considered most advantageous to the government.[1]
Four firms, including
In its report, the agency responded that low price alone would not make an offer the most advantageous, since price and technical factors were equal under the SFO's evaluation scheme; that
Liberty asserts that the technical evaluation was flawed in that it was overly subjective, was biased against urban locations, and failed to provide its proposal with appropriate credit for its offered building's features under each of the technical factors.[5] For example, Liberty asserts that the agency improperly downgraded its building under the image and physical characteristics factor because its overstated timbered entrance and other interior features were too opulent an image to present to the public; under the efficient layout factor, due to an interior design that wasted space and limited the ability to modify the floor plan; and under the high performance features factor, for failing to provide high quality HVAC and high efficiency light fixtures.
Our Office will not sustain a protest unless the protester demonstrates a reasonable possibility that it was prejudiced by the agency's actions, that is, unless the protester demonstrates that, but for the agency's actions, it would have had a substantial chance of receiving the award. McDonald-Bradley, B-270126,
The protest is denied.
Gary L. Kepplinger
General Counsel
[1] The SFO also provided that award was to be made to the firm submitting the lowest priced, technically acceptable offer, but
[2] Under the evaluation plan, offers generally received additive points for exceeding the SFO requirements, no points for meeting the requirements, and deductive points for deficiencies and weaknesses.
[3] In accordance with the SFO evaluation scheme,
[4]
[5]
[6] As observed by the agency, and conceded by