U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia Wanamaker Building, Room 643, 100 Penn Square East, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107

19 -- DESIGN, CONSTRUCT, TEST AND DELIVER ONE FISHERIES RESEARCH VESSEL SOL DACW61-98-R-007 DUE 010798 POC Cheryl R. Watson, Contract Specialist, (215) 656-6894 The Philadelphia District, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Marine Design Center intends to initiate a negotiated procurement to acquire one fisheries research vessel of suitable quality and characteristics to support the research mission of the U. S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division. The vessel to be acquired will be a self-propelled, steel or aluminum constructed, monohull vessel. The vessel will support gill net and trawling operations, and will house wet lab and dry lab spaces where scientific research activities will take place. Accommodations for scientists and vessel crew are also required. It is anticipated that the length of the vessel will be approximately 80 feet. The acquisition will be a negotiated best value procurement using the Contracting by Negotiation procurement process prescribed in Part 15 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. The proposals will be evaluated on the following factors which are listed in descending order of importance: Technical; Management; Cost. Thetechnical portion of each proposal will be weighted more heavily than the management portion which will be weighted more heavily than the cost portion. Cost is, however, a significant factor. A more detailed evaluation criteria will be included in the solicitation. Offerors are advised that their proposal must be within the Government's budget limitation, under $3,000,000.00, which will be identified in the solicitation. Award of the contract will be made as a whole to the offeror whose proposal conforms to all requirements of the specifications and offers "the greatest value" to the Government. The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Code for this project is 3731 with a size standard of 1000 employees. Solicitation No. DACW61-98-R-0007 will be issued on or about December 08, 1997. All requests for the RFP package should be in writing and include a physical street address, telephone and fax numbers. Proposals are due on or about 07 January 1998 at close of business (4:00 p.m. local time). Bid, Performance and Payment bonds are required. No other notification to firms for this project will be made. This procurement is 100% set-aside for small business concerns.***** (0317)

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