Engi­neer­ing Ser­vices RFQ Q&A’s

Ques­tions via info@​pcairport.​com

Sub­mit­ted by: Joe Di Ste­fano, Tier­ra, Inc., Dec. 3, 2020

Q: Can I get a list­ing of atten­dees for the vir­tu­al meet­ing that was held for this project ear­li­er today?

A: ECP Air­port Staff Present:

Park­er McClel­lan, Exec­u­tive Director

Richard McConnell, Deputy Exec­u­tive Director

Kathy Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Assistant

Zoom Atten­dees:

David Scrug­gs, ZHA

Lau­ra Saun­ders, Maser Consulting

Mark Kistler, Michael Bak­er International

Justin Edwards, Infra­struc­ture Con­sult­ing & Engi­neer­ing (ICE)

Kel­ly Dar­by-Ash­er, Fitzger­ald Collaborative

Shan­na Miller, Fitzger­ald Collaborative

Sub­mit­ted by: ZHA, Dec. 3, 2020

Q: Are there any good pho­tos of the recent ECP con­struc­tion projects that are pub­licly available?

A: Pho­tos of the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion and Tran­sient Apron/​Taxiway E1 have been post­ed on our website.

https://​www​.ifly​beach​es​.com/ec…

Sub­mit­ted by: Job Gam­mons, P.E., James Moore Engi­neer­ing, Dec. 8, 2020

Q: How will firms be eval­u­at­ed under this RFQ for being a cer­ti­fied minor­i­ty busi­ness? for exam­ple, will points be giv­en. per CCNA 287.055 under para­graph Com­pet­i­tive Selec­tion sub­para­graph (b) being minor­i­ty busi­ness enter­prise is a fac­tor in the eval­u­a­tion process. 

A: All firms sub­mit­ting a response to this RFQ will be eval­u­at­ed. Eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria can be found in sec­tion C. – Eval­u­a­tion Cri­te­ria in the RFQ doc­u­ment, which includes DBE participation.

Q: To clar­i­fy how many firms will be select­ed under this pro­cure­ment? Per CCNA 287.055 under Com­pet­i­tive Selec­tion para­graph (b) of Com­pet­i­tive Selec­tion states no few­er than three firms shall be selected. 

A: Please refer to the RFQ doc­u­ment — II. INSTRUC­TIONS FOR REQUEST FOR QUAL­I­FI­CA­TIONS (“RFQ”) SUB­MIS­SION, Sec­tion I.

Q: Per CCNA 287.055 under para­graph Com­pet­i­tive Selec­tion sub­para­graph (b) address the vol­ume of work pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed to each firm by the agency, with the object of effect­ing an equi­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­tracts among qual­i­fied firms. If a firm has a his­to­ry of per­form­ing work at the Air­port will that firm have an advan­tage over a qual­i­fied Firm who nev­er per­form work at Airport? 

A: Eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria can be found in sec­tion C. – Eval­u­a­tion Cri­te­ria in the RFQ doc­u­ment. Whether a firm has his­to­ry of per­form­ing work at the Air­port or does not have a his­to­ry of per­form­ing work at the Air­port is not an eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ri­on stat­ed by the RFQ, but the eval­u­a­tors could con­sid­er past pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences with work per­formed for the Air­port as those expe­ri­ences relate to the selec­tion cri­te­ria. Also, it is notable that the statute’s ref­er­ence to ​“vol­ume of work pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed to each firm by the agency” and ​“the object of effect­ing an equi­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of con­tracts among qual­i­fied firms” is qual­i­fied by the prin­ci­ple of select­ing the most high­ly qual­i­fied firms. Con­se­quent­ly, since the Air­port intends to hire one firm and that firm must be the most qual­i­fied, these fac­tors are unlike­ly to be sig­nif­i­cant dur­ing the evaluation. 

Q: Will the vol­ume of work pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed to a firm that has a his­to­ry of per­form­ing work at the Air­port be an eval­u­a­tion fac­tor when select­ing a firm? 

A: Eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria can be found in sec­tion C. – Eval­u­a­tion Cri­te­ria in the RFQ doc­u­ment. Also, see the response above to ques­tion 3.

Q: If the Firm or Firms select­ed who’s not a Dis­ad­van­tage Enter­prise ​“DBE” who will be respon­si­ble for mak­ing sure goals are met for projects that that have a fed­er­al fund­ed grant? 

A: The Air­port fol­lows require­ments for com­pli­ance with fed­er­al regulations.

Q: How can local qual­i­fied ​“DBE” firms in the Air­port mar­ket area (who would like an oppor­tu­ni­ty to per­form work at the Air­port) reach out to Firms that may be apply­ing for this contract? 

A: The Air­port does not have a list of poten­tial respon­dents to the RFQ and there­fore can­not pro­vide that infor­ma­tion. Most large engi­neer­ing firms with offices in north­west Flori­da could poten­tial­ly pur­sue this con­tract and we encour­age all DBE firms with rel­e­vant knowl­edge and skills to con­tact any of them regard­ing the DBE’s inter­est in this contract. 

Q: Can the Air­port Author­i­ty pro­vide a list of firms who was present at the non- manda­to­ry zoom conference? 

A: Please see ifly​beach​es​.com for attendee list.

Q: Will a Vet­er­an Own Firm or Ser­vice-Con­nect­ed Vet­er­an Own firm be giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion in the eval­u­a­tion process for this contract? 

A: All firms sub­mit­ting a response to the RFQ will be eval­u­at­ed. Also, please see Exhib­it 3, Sec­tion 18 to the Sam­ple Con­tract, which is avail­able on the Airport’s web­site, for fur­ther details regard­ing veteran’s preference. 

Q: Was the local Minor­i­ty Cham­ber noti­fied of this ​“RFQ”?

A: Yes

Q: Page 32 of the RFQ indi­cates Oth­er Social­ly and Eco­nom­i­cal­ly Dis­ad­van­tage Sub­con­trac­tors with­ing the DBE group OSE’s , how can ​“DBE’s from this group who are qual­i­fied avail­able and will­ing to work make them­selves known to the Prime Firm’s apply­ing for this Contract? 

A: The Air­port does not have a list of poten­tial respon­dents to the RFQ and there­fore can­not pro­vide that information.

Q: Can a ​“DBE” Firm who’s from Oth­er Social­ly and Eco­nom­i­cal­ly ​“OSE” group as describe on page 32 of this pro­cure­ment be con­sid­ered as a prime con­sul­tant for this contract? 

A: Yes

Q: Accord­ing to the Break­down by Eth­nic­i­ty & Gen­der from 2017 to 2019 that was pro­vid­ed by the Air­port Author­i­ty and obtain ​“via” a local Minor­i­ty Cham­ber, OSE’s Black Amer­i­can, His­pan­ic Amer­i­can, and Native Amer­i­can received $0 dol­lars over the 3‑year peri­od, will these groups who own a ​“DBE” have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be con­sid­ered for work under this contract? 

A: All firms sub­mit­ting a response to this RFQ will be eval­u­at­ed. Eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria can be found in sec­tion C. – Eval­u­a­tion Cri­te­ria in the RFQ document. 

Q: Does the Prime Con­sul­tant have to show on page 32 of this RFQ all DBE’s and/​or MBE’s they intend to use under this procurement? 

A: This infor­ma­tion is required as instruct­ed on Required Form #10.

Q: If a Prime Con­sul­tant or Con­trac­tor indi­cate that they intend to use a par­tic­u­lar DBE Firm (on page 32 of this RFQ), if they decide to use a dif­fer­ent firm after this con­tract is award­ed will that be con­sid­ered a vio­la­tion? In some mar­kets there’s talk of Prime Con­sul­tants and/​or Con­trac­tors renege on their agree­ments with ​“DBE” after a Con­tract is award­ed. Some call this a bait and switch tactic. 

A: Please see Arti­cle 14 of the Sam­ple Con­tract on the Airport’s web­site regard­ing sub-consultants.

Q: If a qual­i­fied Dis­ad­van­tage Busi­ness Enter­prise ​“DBE” reach out to a Prime Con­sul­tant by phone, email etc: and gets no response and that Prime Con­sul­tant sub­mits a Good Faith Affi­davit indi­cat­ing they were not able to locate a ​“DBE” is this con­sid­ered a vio­la­tion of 49 CFR part 26? 

A: Infor­ma­tion sub­mit­ted in any RFQ response will be reviewed and eval­u­at­ed and DBE par­tic­i­pa­tion will be con­sid­ered when respons­es are evaluated

Q: When will infor­ma­tion be avail­able to the pub­lic whether a Prime Firm use a Good Faith Affi­davit for this RFQ? I would think since there’s qual­i­fied ​“DBE’s” in this mar­ket area, a Good Faith affi­davit shouldn’t have mer­its if a ​“DBE” have not been contacted. 

A: Infor­ma­tion received from respon­dents will be avail­able after the sub­mis­sion date via pub­lic records request.

Q: If a Dis­ad­van­tage Busi­ness Enter­prise ​“DBE” haven’t had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to per­form work at an Air­port Author­i­ty but have per­son­nel that have expe­ri­ence design­ing Air­field relat­ed sys­tems that are sim­i­lar scope and mag­ni­tude for Agency such as for the mil­i­tary will that expe­ri­ence be con­sid­ered under this RFQ or will it be dis­count­ed because it wasn’t per­form for a Com­mer­cial Air­port Author­i­ty? For exam­ple, A per­son on the ​“DBE” staff have a his­to­ry of per­form­ing run­way and taxi-way light­ing design, emer­gency pow­er sys­tem design serv­ing Air Traf­fic Con­trol Tow­er and oth­er Air Field Operations. 

A: All firms sub­mit­ting a response to this RFQ will be eval­u­at­ed. Eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria can be found in sec­tion C. – Eval­u­a­tion Cri­te­ria in the RFQ doc­u­ment. Non-com­mer­cial expe­ri­ence, such as mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence, will be con­sid­ered dur­ing the eval­u­a­tion of responses.

Q: It’s my under­stand­ing ​“ZHA” is the Gen­er­al Engi­neer­ing con­sul­tant for the Air­port Author­i­ty and anoth­er com­pa­ny is doing the Mas­ter Plan Update, will the Firm or Firms select­ed under this ​“RFQ” be con­sid­ered an addi­tion­al Con­sul­tant to ​“ZHA” and/​or the Air­port Authority? 

A: The select­ed firm will be under con­tract direct­ly with the Air­port Author­i­ty. This RFQ is for the ser­vices that ZHA is per­form­ing currently. 

Received 12/10/2020:

Q: From this morn­ing’s walk thru meet­ing at the Air­port how can I make aware to Prime Con­sul­tants the con­tact infor­ma­tion below for two Elec­tri­cal, Mechan­i­cal, Plumb­ing and Fire Pro­tec­tion Engi­neer­ing Firms who are a Dis­ad­van­tage Busi­ness Enter­pris­es ​“DBE’s” that are inter­est­ed in being on a Prime Con­sutant Team? See cor­rect phone num­ber below for ​“JAMAA”, it’s dif­fer­ent than what was pro­vid­ed on the Busi­ness card. 

James & Moore and Asso­ciates, LLC

Elec­tri­cal Engineers

653 West 23rd Street, Suite 307

Pana­ma City, Flori­da 32405

Phone 850−902−7301

Emerc Engi­neer­ing, LLC

1704 Beech­wood Cir­cle North

Tal­la­has­see, Fla 32401

Phone 850−264−4940

A: The Air­port does not have a list of poten­tial respon­dents to this RFQ and there­fore can­not pro­vide that infor­ma­tion for this RFQ. A good way to encour­age firms to con­sid­er James & Moore and Asso­ciates, LLC and Emerc Engi­neer­ing, LLC for projects more gen­er­al­ly would be to ensure that those firms are includ­ed on the Flori­da DBE direc­to­ry avail­able at https://​fdotxw​p02​.dot​.state​.fl​.us/​E​q​u​a​l​O​p​p​o​r​t​u​n​i​t​y​O​f​f​i​c​e​B​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​D​i​r​e​c​tory/. This direc­to­ry is ref­er­enced by the Airport’s DBE pol­i­cy and is a resource that prime con­trac­tors may con­sult to locate DBE firms.

Q: In the cur­rent Prime Con­sul­tant con­tract what were the Engi­neer­ing dis­ci­pline Firms use to meet ​“DBE” goals if any when the con­tract was orig­i­nal­ly awarded? 

A: AVCON, Inc.

Q: Have there been a his­to­ry of any Elec­tri­cal, Mechan­i­cal, Plumb­ing, and Fire Pro­tec­tion ​“DBE” fir­m’s use for Engi­neer­ing Ser­vices at the Airport? 

A: Yes. Ser­vices have been pro­vid­ed by AVCON, Inc. and Eco­log­i­cal Resource Con­sul­tants Inc.