This memorandum is to advise you of the City’s upcoming solicitation, an Invitation to Negotiate seeking proposers for the design-build-finance of the City’s fire rescue services facilities, specifically providing for the initiate project to be the construction of Fire Station No. 88. Fire Station No. 88 is to be constructed at the recently purchased former Walgreen’s property located at the northeast corner of Congress Avenue and Blue Heron Boulevard. The solicitation is being offered pursuant to Fla. Stat. §255.065, governing public-private partnerships.
Fire Station No. 88 is to be designed and constructed utilizing a HOT Zone fire rescue facility design concept. It is anticipated to be a two-story, 28,000 +/- square feet public facility consisting of five apparatus bays, sleeping and private restroom facilities for male and female firefighters, locker rooms, exercise room, kitchen, dining room, lounge/dayroom, offices, training element, decontamination area and a fire operations center. Hot Zone designs were introduced for fire rescue facilities, after published research on cancer rates in fire station staff. Such designs divide a fire station into zones, restricting cancer-causing contaminants from living areas.
Under Florida Law, an “Invitation to Negotiate” is defined, as a written or electronically posted solicitation for competitive sealed replies to select one or more vendors with which to commence negotiations for procurement of commodities or contractual services. The Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) provides for a two-step process. The first step will determine the responsiveness of the proposals, and subsequently an evaluation of the responsive proposals by an evaluation committee using the published criteria. After evaluating the proposals, the evaluation committee will shortlist the top three (3) proposals/proposers for presentation to and decision-making by the City Council.
Additionally, the solicitation also provides that the City may engage the successful Respondent to construct the remaining aging fire facilities, Fire Stations No. 86 and 87. It is anticipated the solicitation will be published and posted on January 3 and 4, 2021, respectively. The solicitation requires responses to be submitted in 75 days from the date of publication.