National Park Service, Denver Service Center, P.O. Box 25287, Denver, Colorado 80225-0287

C -- INDEFINITE QUANTITY ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACT FOR PLANNING SERVICES FOR PROJECTS IN NPS AREAS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES AND ITS POSSESSIONS AND TERRITORIES. SOL 1443-CX-2000-99-003 POC Point of Contact -Judy Hauser, Contracting Officer Phone 303 969-2113 E-MAIL: National Park Service, Denver Service Center, contracts_dsc@nps.gov. The National Park Service (NPS), Denver Service Center, is seeking a qualified firm(s), individual(s), or group(s) with specialized expertise in land use planning to perform an indefinite quantity contract for miscellaneous small and large projects throughout the United States and its possessions and territories. The Government may elect to award a single task order contract or to award multiple task order contracts to two or more sources under this solicitation. The Government reserves the right to award contracts, based on the selection board's final selection list, in order of preference, to the firms considered most highly qualified to perform the work. Each awarded shall be provided a fair opportunity to be considered for task orders to be issued. The Government will use such factors as past performance, quality of deliverables, or other factors that the Contracting Officer, in the exercise of sound business judgment, believes are relevant to the placement of orders. The selected team shall be predominately a Planning firm specializing in land use planning, natural and cultural resource evaluation. Disciplines or consultants include planning (land-use, transportation, community, outdoor recreation, interpretive, etc.); natural resource specialist (biology, hydrology, geology, botany, etc.); socio-economists (regional and community economic modeling, visitor use surveys); and cultural resource specialist (history, archeology, anthropology, etc.); graphic illustrator (freehand and graphic software programs including CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop), geographic information systems specialist (GIS), and writer/editor (Microsoft Word). Firm should also have experience in designing and using interactive web pages. The proposed work may extend over several fiscal years, involving projects at various stages, which will require that the selected firm(s) must be capable of providing and managing a multi-disciplinary team from within the firm or in conjunction with subconsultants and/or NPS professionals. The A/E firm will need to have direct contact with federal, state or local regulatory agencies to assure compliance with regulations, codes and policies. The firms submitting should also convey their sensitivity to NPS values and standards, and show demonstrated experience in their ability to analyze, utilize and incorporate sustainable design principles (The NPS has adopted "Sustainable Design" as the term for the principle by which future park planning and development will be guided. By definition, this term means meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In practice, sustainable design minimizes the short and long term environmental impacts of development activity through resource conservation, recycling, wasted minimization and the utilization of energy efficient and ecologically responsible materials and techniques for development. All work will be guided by NPS policies and directives. Projects may include but are not limited to: A. park planning studies, or their components (i.e. general management plans, conceptual site development plans, carrying capacities, special studies; historical, archeological, and other natural, cultural, historic resource studies and surveys; historic structure reports, socio-economic studies and natural resource information studies); B. preparation of environmental documents (i.e. categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, environmental impact statements and Federal and state permits) and various sections thereof, to meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Executive Orders 11988 and 111990, the National Historic Preservation Act, and other laws, executive orders, regulations, and guidelines as appropriate. C. preparation of cultural resources compliance documents (assessment of effects forms, case reports, agreement documents) which must meet requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act and implementing regulations, Programmatic Agreement of the National Park Service (U.S. Department of the Interior), The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and implementing regulations, and National Park Service policies and guidelines and other applicable legislation and standards. D. preparation of supporting documentation for compliance activities including archeology (identifying and evaluating significance of historic and prehistoric archeological properties, conducting data recovery excavations, preparing and/or revising National Register forms for archeological sites and/or districts, ethnography (ethnographic studies and assessments, Native American consultation), history (historic resource studies, historic structure reports, special history studies and national register forms) E. Public Involvement and working with communities i.e. facilitation of workshops, newsletters, workbooks, interactive web pages, public design charettes, and public display graphics. The following criteria, in descending order of importance, shall be used in the evaluation of the prospective firms. Please note that these criteria shall be used by the NPS in lieu of the criteria listed under Note 24. 1. Professional qualifications (education and applicable work experience) of the firms and staff proposed for the performance of desired services as described above. 2. Specialized and recent experience and technical expertise in conducting the aforementioned planning in naturally and culturally sensitive areas in a broad range of environments. 3. Capacity to schedule projects and accomplish more than one project at a time within the desired time schedule. 4. The ability to communicate verbally, in writing and in person on a daily basis with the professional project management and planning staff located in Denver, Colorado, as well as Park, Regional Offices and Partnership Groups. 5. Familiarity with the use of Geographic Information Systems, as well as demonstrated ability to provide graphic and visual simulation technology. The term of each contract shall be one year with four one-year options. Each A/E prime awarded a contract is guaranteed a minimum of $25,000 during the life of the contract. The total of all work per year will not exceed $1,500,000 and each task order will not exceed $500,000. This procurement is open to small and large business and is subject to Public Law 100-656, The Business Opportunity Development Reform Act of 1988. The National Park Service supports the Department of the Interior's goals to increase small business participation in its contracting programs. The National Park Service strongly encourages the participation of small business firms including women and minority owned and operated A/E firms and encourages large business firms to include small, women-owned, and disadvantaged business firms as part of their team. Large business firms selected for contract award will be required to submit a subcontracting plan which will separate percentage goals for using small business concerns, women-owned, and small disadvantaged business concerns as subcontractors. The subcontracting plan will need to establish goals for the base and all option years. The government will not indemnify the firm selected against liability involving asbestos or other hazardous materials; that is, no clause holding the firm harmless will be included in the contract. Firms that fully meet the requirements described in this announcement are invited to submit a Letter of Interest and completed Standard Forms 254 for each firm and a Team Standard Form 255 in an original only. Submission of additional supporting material is encouraged, but only to the extent that it graphically (via drawings and photographs) substantiates the relevant project work specifically described on Standard Forms 254/255. In support of the sustainable practices of resource conservation and material recycling, submissions should be concise, make wise use of recycled/recyclable paper and other materials, and be organized in such manner that the recyclable material can be easily removed after evaluation. To the extent possible, printed/copied double-sided paper documents will be submitted. Responses must be received before 5:00 p.m., 30 calendar days from the date of this publication (first work day following a weekend or holiday) in order to be considered for selection. This is not a Request for Proposal. Posted 01/27/99 (D-SN291819). (0027)

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