BNUMBER: B-276889
DATE: July 1, 1997
TITLE: American Connecting Source d/b/a Connections, B-276889, July
1, 1997
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Matter of:American Connecting Source d/b/a Connections
File: B-276889
Date:July 1, 1997
Joseph J. Petrillo, Esq., and William E. Conner, Esq., Petrillo &
Associates, for the protester.
Mark Langstein, Esq., and Alden F. Abbott, Esq., Department of
Commerce, for the agency.
Ralph O. White, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
Where solicitation for conference facilities limited competition to
hotels within a five block area of the main agency headquarters, the
protester's proposal was properly excluded from the competitive range
after agency evaluators determined that the protester's offered
facility was located beyond the geographic area specified in the
solicitation.
DECISION
American Connecting Source d/b/a Connections protests the award of a
contract to the J.W. Marriott Hotel, Washington, D.C., by the
Department of Commerce pursuant to request for proposals (RFP) No.
52-DKEX-7-90016, issued to procure conference facilities for the
Bureau of Export Administration's Annual Update Conference on
strategic trade issues. Connections argues that its proposal,
offering conference facilities at the Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel,
was improperly excluded from the competitive range because the agency
erroneously concluded that the hotel was located outside the
geographic limitation set forth in the RFP.[1]
We deny the protest.
The Commerce Department issued the RFP here on January 31, 1997,
seeking conference and hotel facilities and associated services for
the July 1997 conference, and for 2 option years. The statement of
work specified the characteristics of several needed rooms, including
three rooms capable of accommodating at least 350 conferees, and one
capable of accommodating 250 conferees. The RFP also stipulated that
offered facilities be located no more than five blocks from the main
building of the Department of Commerce. Specifically, section B-9 of
the RFP provided:
"The conference facility must be a walking distance of no more
than five blocks to the Department of Commerce, 14th and
Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20230. This
restriction is critical due to the high level of participants by
the Department of Commerce upper management and employees, and
reimbursements for cab fare and metro subway fare would be
costly. Also, the use of public transportation would not allow
for time flexibility crucial to program format and would increase
participants' time away from the office."
The Department received two proposals by the March 11 closing date:
one from the J.W. Marriott, located at the corner of 14th and
Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., across the street from the main Commerce
building; one from Connections, offering the Grand Hyatt, located at
10th and H Streets, N.W. Although the agency evaluated Connections's
proposal on each of the three evaluation factors set forth in the RFP,
it did not evaluate Connections's price after the evaluators
determined that the proposal was unacceptable and should be excluded
from the competitive range because it offered a facility more than
five blocks from the Department of Commerce. At the conclusion of the
evaluation, award was made to the J.W. Marriott at a price of $552,120
for the base year and both option years. This protest followed.
Connections argues that the agency wrongly concluded that the Grand
Hyatt is located more than five blocks from the Department of
Commerce. As discussed below, Connections's urged interpretation
appears to be based on both an unlikely pedestrian route, and an
unreasonable assumption that certain kinds of streets should not be
counted as forming blocks. Alternatively, Connections argues that the
solicitation's five-block requirement was ambiguous and therefore
should not be strictly construed. In this regard, Connections
contends that city blocks in downtown Washington are of various sizes,
and urges that our Office adopt a definition of a block based on a
length of distance equal to one of the longest blocks Connections can
identify. We are unpersuaded by both arguments.
As a preliminary matter, Connections's arguments that the term "block"
is imprecise and should be broadly interpreted, are, in essence,
claims that the solicitation was ambiguous on its face. In this
regard, Connections urges that the RFP's five-block requirement should
not be interpreted literally, but should instead be viewed as a
requirement that offered facilities be within an easy walking
distance, or alternatively, should be interpreted with some fixed
distance assigned for each block. While we are not convinced by this
record that the term "block" as used here is ambiguous, any
uncertainty about this issue was apparent from the face of the
solicitation and thus constituted a patent ambiguity. In such
situations, offerors may not simply make unilateral assumptions
regarding the meaning of patently ambiguous terms in the RFP and then
expect relief when the agency does not act in the manner the offeror
assumed.[2] Rather, the offeror must challenge the alleged ambiguity
prior to the time set for receipt of initial proposals. 4 C.F.R. sec.
21.2(a)(1) (1997); Christie Constructors, Inc., B-271759; B-271759.2,
July 23, 1996, 96-2 CPD para. 87 at 6.
With respect to Connections's substantive challenge to its evaluation,
we note first that agencies may properly restrict procurements to
offerors within a specified geographical area if the restriction is
reasonably necessary for the agency to meet its minimum needs. NFI
Management Co., B-240788, Dec. 12, 1990, 90-2 CPD para. 484 at 2. Where,
as here, a dispute exists as to the actual meaning of a solicitation
requirement like this one, we read the solicitation as a whole and in
a manner that gives effect to all provisions of the solicitation. Dr.
Carole J. Barry, B-271248, June 28, 1996, 96-1 CPD para. 292 at 4.
Our review of the record--supplemented by our own familiarity with the
Washington, D.C. area--leads us to conclude that the agency correctly
determined that the Grand Hyatt is more than five blocks from the
Department of Commerce. The Grand Hyatt is located on a block bounded
by 10th and 11th Streets, on the east and west, respectively, and by G
and H Streets, on the south and north, respectively. The Department
of Commerce is located on a block bounded by 14th and 15th Streets on
the east and west, respectively, and by Constitution and Pennsylvania
Avenues on the south and north, respectively. Our review of maps
provided by the protester and the agency, including one distributed by
the Grand Hyatt itself, shows that any route between these two
locations--using any definition of a block in common parlance--is at
least six blocks in length.[3] In fact, it appears that the more
likely pedestrian routes between these two locations would involve
traversing seven blocks or more.
Connections argues, however, that the Grand Hyatt is only five blocks
from the Department of Commerce if one takes a route departing from
the east side of the Grand Hyatt--away from the Department of
Commerce--south on 10th Street across G, F, and E Streets, and then
across Pennsylvania Avenue to the intersection of 10th and
Constitution Avenue. This route then follows Constitution west to the
south entrance of the Commerce Department on Constitution between 14th
and 15th Streets--the entrance farthest away from the Grand Hyatt. In
order to claim that this route is only five blocks, Connections counts
blocks as follows: on 10th from G to F (1 block), F to E (1 block), E
to Pennsylvania (1/2 block), and Pennsylvania to Constitution (1/2
block); then on Constitution from 10th to 12th (1 block), and from
12th to 14th (1 block). Not only is Connections's argument based on
an unlikely pedestrian route (since it posits exiting the hotel from
the side away from the Commerce Department and entering the Department
on the side farthest from the hotel), but Connections calculates a
five-block total for this route by not counting Pennsylvania
Avenue--which bisects 10th between E and Constitution--and because
11th and 13th Streets do not bisect Constitution Avenue--creating two
very long blocks. Simply put, we consider the protester's
"five-block" route an unpersuasive substitute for the agency's
reasonable determination that Connections was offering a hotel outside
the five-block limit. Collington Assocs., B-231788, Oct. 18, 1988,
88-2 CPD para. 363 at 3.
The protest is denied.
Comptroller General
of the United States
1. Connections also challenges the agency's exclusion of its proposal
on the basis that it does not meet the requisite space requirements,
and other evaluation conclusions. Since we find that the agency
properly determined that Connections's offered hotel was outside the
geographic proximity requirement, and Connections thus is not eligible
for award, we need not reach Connections's other challenges to its
evaluation.
2. We note, for example, that in the protester's comments on the
agency report, a representative of the protester acknowledges that she
was concerned that the Grand Hyatt might be outside the five-block
limitation in the RFP. As part of an effort to ascertain this fact,
the record shows that this individual contacted the Washington, D.C.
Convention and Visitors Association and was erroneously advised by
them that the Grand Hyatt was within five blocks of the Department of
Commerce. While we understand that the protester relied to its
detriment on this erroneous information, these events do not provide a
basis to overturn the agency's evaluation decision. See Thresholds
Unlimited, Inc.--Recon., B-248817.3, Aug. 12, 1992, 92-2 CPD para. 102 at
2 (protester's reliance on erroneous advice from a Congressional
office about our timeliness rules did not excuse an untimely protest
filing).
3. The term "block" has two meanings relevant to this discussion. A
block is "a usually rectangular space (as in a city) enclosed by
streets and occupied by or intended for buildings" and a block is "the
distance along one of the sides of such a block." Webster's Ninth New
Collegiate Dictionary (1989).