Operation and Maintenance to the Central utility Plant (CUP) at the NIH Research Triangle Park, NC

This is a Small Business Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation or request for proposal, proposal abstracts, or quotations. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not constitute any commitment by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response to this notice. The Government will not reimburse for the data provided or will not return any data. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any entity responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. THE PURPOSE OF THIS SMALL BUSINESS SOURCES SOUGHT SYNOPSIS IS TO DETERMINE INTEREST AND CAPABILITY OF POTENTIAL QUALIFIED SMALL BUSINESSES. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining innovative, highly capable and qualified small businesses to perform services described in the description of services. Only entities that fall within the certified SBA program, under the applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 561210 (Facilities Support Services) for the proposed acquisition, should submit a response to this notice. The proposed contract vehicle for this Service is anticipated to be a Fixed Price contract. This proposed procurement will include a base year with provision for potentially four (4) 1-year option periods. The Government intends to potentially select a vendor whose expected outcome to this sources sought in the Government's estimation provides the greatest overall benefit in response to this sources sought. The Contractor will be responsible for providing single and multi- Services described below in the Description of Services. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires services to provide operation and maintenance to the Central Utility Plant (CUP) at the NIH Research Triangle Park, North Carolina location. The CUP provides all utility services for heating, cooling, electrical distribution, and hazardous waste incineration for NIH s National Institute of Environment Health Sciences (NIEHS) campus and the adjoining campus of the Environmental Protection Agency at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. BACKGROUND: The NIEHS Campus, completed in 1982, is Government-owned, expandable location which includes administration, laboratory, and support facilities. The NIEHS Campus consists of 374.5 acres of land, eight buildings, roadways, parking areas, and an underground utilities system. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also has a facility located on the adjoining Government owned property which includes approximately 1,000,000 sq. ft. of office and laboratory space. This facility is heated and cooled from the NIEHS CUP. The NIEHS and EPA are research complexes containing complicated and sophisticated building environmental support and utility systems to support long term research. Animals are widely used in this research. These test animals are housed in very tightly controlled conditions of temperature and humidity, and are supplied with conditioned air that has been filtered to remove microorganisms and chemicals which could adversely affect the outcome of a research project. Laboratories contain extremely complex and expensive test equipment which requires, in many cases, a very closely controlled environment to function properly. Responsiveness and skill by contractor employees to operate, maintain, repair and restore operation and control of the utilities support systems is extremely critical for the protection of the integrity of the many research programs being conducted at this facility. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES: Provide all personnel, supervision, management, equipment, materials, supplies, tools, and all other items necessary to operate and maintain the CUP, which provides all utilities services for heating, cooling, electrical distribution, and hazardous waste incineration for the NIH/NIEHS North Carolina Facilities and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition, provide all personnel, supervision, management, equipment, materials, supplies, tools, and all other items necessary to provide 24/7 building engineer services for the operation of the NIH/NIEHS North Carolina Facilities. Services shall include, but not limited to, operation of utilities systems and their associated mechanical/electrical plants; preventive maintenance and repair maintenance on utility plants and equipment. The contractor will be required to operate, maintain and repair all mechanical, electrical and utility systems in four buildings which include 1) Consolidated Computer Room, 2) Central Utility Plant, 3) Incinerator Building, and 4) Electrical Sub-Station. Three of the buildings include distribution of high voltage electricity, high temperature hot water (HTHW), chilled water (CHW). The requirement includes operations, maintenance and management of repair of all underground and above ground distribution piping and wiring and equipment associated with electricity, HTHW, CHW, PW (Domestic Water; underground piping only), valve pits and sewer effluent piping and fire protection distribution piping, and system controls up to and including the first cut-off valve or disconnect inside all buildings on the NIH/NIEHS Campus and between the CUP and the outlet of the isolation valve within the valve pits serving the EPA Campus. Contractor personnel shall have experience with various sizes and types of complex equipment. Examples would be experience with high temperature hot water generators (40 MBTU each), water chillers (3,500 tons each), electrical substation distribution (13,800 volts), hazardous waste incineration, wet scrubber operation and the operations of facilities that contain multipurpose laboratories to include animal laboratories. SUBMISSION OF CAPABILITY STATEMENT OF QUALIFICATIONS: Firms with an interest in being considered for the operation and maintenance of the central utility plan contract must submit the required capability statement of qualifications. The Capability Statement of Qualifications shall not exceed 10 single-sided pages of 8 1/2x11 size paper, and shall address the following: (1) Company information to include name, point(s) of contact(s); email address(es), physical/mailing address, telephone number, any small business self-certified category (e.g. woman owned and service-disabled veteran-owned) in addition to small business, DUNS number; (2) Describe firm's current and relevant experience relating to the tasks described above including the - scope and nature of at least three (3) of the most current or completed comparable projects within past 5 years to include size of the project, delivery method, beginning and ending contract price, beginning and ending dates of the project, customer name and point of contact, point of contact email, mailing address and telephone number, indicate if you were the prime or sub-contractor; (4) Provide from your bonding company your overall bonding limit and individual bonding capacity. Additionally, brochures or other pre-printed material may be submitted to address the above capabilities/qualifications under the condition that they are included in the page count subject to the above threshold limitation. DUE DATE: Firms shall submit one copy of the capability statement of qualifications for receipt by the NIH NO LATER THAN 3:00 PM 03/16/2012 Eastern Standard Time. Mail a hardcopy and one electronic copy on a CD to the Contracting Office Address at: National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Acquisition, ATTN: Josephine Chutta, Contracting Officer(E), 9000 Rockville Pike, Building 13, Room 2E48, MSC-5711,, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-5711. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response.