GSA has two $500 million small business construction IDIQs closing a day apart, and on paper they are nearly the same contract

GSA’s Public Buildings Service has two total small business construction IDIQ solicitations open at once, and they close 24 hours apart. The New York and New Jersey vehicle takes proposals until 4:00 p.m. Eastern on October 28. The D.C. metro area vehicle takes them until 4:00 p.m. Eastern on October 29. Both are multiple award IDIQs for general construction and design-build on federally owned and federally leased space. Both carry a $500,000,000 ceiling across all awards over a five-year life, with no annual or per-contract ceiling. Both run one base year and four one-year options. Both run under NAICS 236220 with a $45,000,000 small business size standard and PSC Z2AA. Both will be awarded on highest technically rated with a fair and reasonable price under FAR 15.103-3, without negotiations unless GSA decides it needs them. Between them GSA intends to award approximately 43 contracts.

Three things actually differ, and each one points at a different firm. The first is the size of the work. New York and New Jersey puts task orders at up to $20,000,000; D.C. sets a general range of $350,000 to $10,000,000. A firm whose bonding and schedule are built around jobs under $10,000,000 is reading two different vehicles, not two copies of one. The second is the shape of the award. New York and New Jersey is split into four zones — metropolitan New York City with approximately ten awards, and western, central and eastern upstate New York with approximately five each, to a maximum of about 25 — and an offeror may submit for every zone and be awarded more than one, which makes zone selection a strategy question rather than a geography question. D.C. is one geography and approximately 18 awards. The third is the reserve mix. Both set aside up to twelve awards, but New York and New Jersey reserves one HUBZone, one SDVOSB and one WOSB award in each zone and reserves nothing for 8(a); D.C. reserves three contracts each for 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB and SDVOSB. An 8(a) firm has a reserved lane in Washington and none in New York.

The amendment traffic says where the requirement is still moving, and it is lopsided. The D.C. solicitation has carried six amendments between September 30 and October 9, four of them government responses to pre-proposal requests for information, with the sixth telling offerors to read the existing questions and answers before submitting new ones. New York and New Jersey has carried one, issued October 7, and has published no questions and answers at all. Because the two documents share a PSC code, a NAICS code, a size standard and an award method, the answers already published on the D.C. notice are the cheapest technical intelligence available on either one — and they are free to read whether or not you bid in Washington. Read them this week. The New York notice sets its own deadline for requests for information inside the solicitation package and states plainly that anything arriving after it will not be answered, so a question you only think to ask in the last week is a question you do not get answered.