New United States Courthouse, Chattanooga- Construction Manager as Constructor (CMc)

Pre-solicitation Notice 

Title: Construction-Manager as Constructor for the New United States Courthouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee 

Department/Agency: General Services Administration

Subtier: Public Buildings Service

Office: PBS, Reg 04, Acquisition Management Division 

Set Aside: None

Product Service Code: C1AA - CONSTRUCTION OF OFFICE BUILDINGS

NAICS Code: 236220 - Commercial and Institutional Building Construction

Place of Performance: Chattanooga, Tennessee

The United States General Services Administration (GSA) Public Buildings Service (PBS) announces an opportunity for Construction Excellence in the construction of a new United States Courthouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The project will be delivered via the Construction Manager as Constructor (CMc) delivery method in which the GSA contracts with a CMc during the design phase of the project to provide design input and constructability review and establishes a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contract option to execute the construction portion of the project. 

PROJECT OVERVIEW

The General Services Administration (GSA) intends to design and construct a new free standing courthouse of approximately 190,701 gross-square-foot in Chattanooga, Tennessee utilizing the Construction Manager as Constructor (CMc) delivery method. The courthouse, once completed, will consist of seven (7) courtrooms, nine (9) chambers, and 40 inside secure parking spaces. The building will accommodate the 10-year needs (year 2031) of the court and court-related agencies with future expansion provisions to accommodate the court’s 30-year space needs (year 2051). These needs include approximately 2,400 usable square feet (3,597 gross square feet) of additional office and support space for the District Clerk, U.S. Probation Office and Bankruptcy Clerk. The project is currently in the site selection phase. GSA expects the site to be selected in first quarter CY2025 with the federal government fully acquiring (i.e. owning) the site by third quarter CY 2025. Concurrent with the site acquisition phase, GSA also developed a Program of Requirements (POR) under a Construction Manager as Advisor (CMa) contract. The selected CMc contractor will provide pre-construction services providing cost and constructability input to the design team during the design phase and will ultimately be responsible for constructing the courthouse within the Guaranteed Maximum Price upon exercise of the GMP Option for construction.  

GSA has contracted separately for a Construction Manager as Advisor (CMa) and is in the process of contracting for a Lead Design Architect. The CMa and CMc will be involved in the design process to provide administrative functions, construction expertise, estimating services, building information modeling coordination, and both drawing-based and model-based functionality / constructability reviews.  There will be a formal partnering process throughout the design and construction phases to promote successful project development and execution through integrated delivery of the project to accomplish established agreed-upon project objectives by all involved parties to their mutual benefit.

Disclosure of the Magnitude of Construction: 

The estimated magnitude of construction is between $172M - $182M. This range includes the anticipated firm fixed price pre-construction phase services and the Guaranteed Maximum Price construction option. 

Procurement Approach:

GSA is procuring the CMc contractor using the advisory multi-step process outlined in FAR 15.202 and ultimately awarding a contract to the firm whose offer is the Highest Technically Rated Offer at a fair and reasonable price. This presolicitation notice is step one of the advisory multi-step process. Participation in step 1 is mandatory. In order to participate in Step 2, firms must participate in Step 1. 

In step 1, we are inviting interested and qualified CMc firms to submit information as described below which will be evaluated by the government based on the evaluation criteria listed below. Information should be submitted via email to Dellice McElroy at dellice.mcelroy@gsa.gov and Joseph Ardoin III  joseph.ardoin@gsa.gov  as a single PDF attachment by 2pm Eastern May 9, 2025.

A virtual conference will be held at 2pm Eastern on April 10, 2025 to discuss the procurement approach and answer questions of interested offerors. Pre-registration is required. Please complete the following electronic form to register for the conference (you may need to copy/paste the url)  https://forms.gle/BEBPeofLJJyZfHD49  by 2pm Eastern April 8, 2025.  Login information for the conference will be shared on or before April 9, 2025. 

Go/NoGo Screening Criteria;

• Bonding Capacity exceeding $200M
  • Provide a letter from bonding company outlining bonding capacity on a per project and aggregate basis
• CAS Compliance
  • Submit a letter from firm’s CPA, Chief Financial Officer, or equivalent confirming offeror’s accounting system presently complies with or will comply with full Cost Accounting Standards

Firms who pass the Go/NoGo screening criteria will be evaluated based on the following technical factors: 

Technical Factor 1 - Prior experience & Past Performance on Similar Projects

Submit between 3 and 5 Similar Projects (maximum of 2 pages per project).  Project summary should include at a minimum project description, dollar value, year completed, duration of project, project delivery method, project team, and statement of how it is relevant to this project. 

Similar projects include: 

• New Construction or Significant Renovation of a courthouse, secure civic facility, class a secured office space or similar which include most of the following attributes:
  • Was completed within the last 10 years
  • Construction cost exceeding $75M
  • Gross square foot (gsf) exceeding 100K
  • Included building security such as progressive collapse, blast, hardening, and physical access control 
  • Included a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP)
  • Was delivered via CMc or other integrated project delivery method
  • Included LEED and/or SITES accreditation 
  • Describe any claims, if applicable, regarding the project

Projects that are primarily residential in nature, i.e. dormitories, condo/apartment buildings, hotels, as well as projects that are retail focused, i.e. shopping malls/centers, grocery stores, or projects with a primary function that are warehouse or industrial in nature, are not considered similar for purposes of evaluation. 

Technical Factor 2 - Firm’s Approach to this Project

• Maximum 2 page narrative describing how the firm would approach this project from a CMc perspective 

Technical Factor 3 - Experience Modification Rate (EMR) Rating

• Provide letter from insurance provider showing current EMR rating 

Step 1 Technical Factors will be evaluated by the Government on a Confidence-based Rating Scale as follows:

High Confidence The Government has high confidence that the offeror understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the contract with little or no Government intervention. 

Some Confidence The Government has some confidence that the offeror understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the contract with some Government intervention. 

Low Confidence The Government has low confidence that the Offeror understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, or will be successful in performing the contract even with Government intervention. 

At the conclusion of Step 1, the Contracting Officer will issue advisory down select notices to all offerors who responded to Step 1. Those notices will either invite the offeror to participate in Step 2, or provide the following notice: 

Based on the information presented, your firm is not among the most highly rated offers. You are unlikely to be a viable competitor for this acquisition, and we advise you not to participate in the next phase. 

Step 2

Step 2 will consist of the formal solicitation and will be sent via email to those firms invited to participate based on the Step 1 advisory notifications. In order to participate in Step 2, firms must participate in Step 1. 

For planning purposes, GSA anticipates the following acquisition milestones:

Step 2 Solicitation: Request for Proposal (RFP) Issued Late May 2025

Pre-proposal Conference in Chattanooga, TN: Early - June 2025

RFP Due Date: Late July 2025

Oral Presentations in Chattanooga: Late July 2025

Estimated award date: October 2025.

GSA is currently pursuing a waiver to FAR clause 52.222-34 Alternative 1, Project Labor Agreement for this project. Should a waiver not be granted, the project labor agreement will be required to be fully executed prior to exercising the GMP construction option. A final decision about a waiver is expected prior to the release of the Step 2 Request for Proposals. 

A draft copy of the agreement that will form the basis of the eventual contract resulting from this solicitation is attached for reference along with draft copies of the CMc scope of work and Program of Requirements. 

Attachments: 

1. Draft Agreement 
2. Draft SOW
3. Draft POR 
4. Building Core Standards Memo

Please do not hesitate to contact Dellice McElroy, Joseph Ardoin at the email addresses above with any questions or requests for clarification.  The cutoff for questions regarding this presolicitation is 2pm Eastern April 17, 2025. 

Thank you for your interest in GSA Region 4's projects. Our goal is to obtain the best value for the taxpayer and in doing so make it as easy as possible to do business with GSA. If anything included in this announcement is unclear, please do not hesitate to contact the individuals listed above.