The Services to be provided under these contracts consist of project specific civil engineering and related services for the Town on an as needed basis for current and future projects. Pursuant to Florida Statutes 287.055, the Consultants' Competitive Negotiation Act (“CCNA”), projects issued under the awarded contracts are limited to those in which the total construction cost is under $2 million, or study activities under $200,000.
The Town has need for civil engineering services in the following disciplines: (1) General Civil Engineering Services; (2) Transportation Engineering; (3) Environmental/Ecological Engineering; and (4) ESCO/Renewable Energy Consulting. In the Request for Qualifications (“RFQ”), Proposers were given the opportunity to select which disciplines their Proposal should be considered for.
The Town issued RFQ 2017-32 for Miscellaneous Civil Engineering & Related Services on June 14, 2017. An advertisement for the solicitation was placed in the June 14, 2017 edition of the Miami Daily Business Review, legal notice was posted in the lobby of Town Hall, and 1,737 firms were notified through DemandStar. Copies of the solicitation were made available through DemandStar and the Town's website.
Prospective Proposers were required to be licensed to offer engineering services in the State of Florida, have a minimum of five (5) years experience performing professional services for similar projects, and have completed at least three (3) projects of a similar size, scope and complexity in the past five (5) years.
By the Proposal Deadline, July 24, 2017, the Town received 11 Proposals from the following firms:
- Amec Foster Wheeler Environment & Infrastructure, Inc. (“Amec Foster”);
- Calvin, Giordano & Associates, Inc. (“Calvin”);
- Chen Moore & Associates, Inc. (“Chen Moore”);
- David Plummer & Associates, Inc. (“David Plummer”);
- HW Lochner, Inc. (“HW Lochner”);
- Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc. (“KHA”);
- Marlin Engineering, Inc. (“Marlin”);
- RJ Behar & Company, Inc. (“RJ Behar”);
- SRS Engineering, Inc. (“SRS”);
- The Corradino Group, Inc. (“Corradino”); and
- WSP USA, Inc. (“WSP”).
An Evaluation Committee (“Committee”) was appointed on August 14, 2017, consisting of the following individuals:
- Carlos Acosta, Public Works Director;
- Carmen Olazabal, Public Works CIP Consultant;
- Michelle Gonzalez, Senior Transportation Planner; and
- Andrea Agha, Assistant Town Manager.
The Evaluation Committee met on August 22, 2017 and established the following rankings in each discipline for award in the following manner:
General Civil Engineering
- KHA (385 points);
- Marlin (379 points);
- Amec Foster (372 points);
- HW Lochner (368 points);
- WSP (366 points);
- Corradino (357 points);
- Calvin (356 points);
- David Plummer (346 points);
- RJ Behar (333 points);
- Chen Moore* (333 points); and
- SRS Engineering (312 points).
*RJ Behar and Chen Moore tied with the same number of points.
Transportation Engineering
- HW Lochner (389 points);
- Corradino (382 points);
- KHA (377 points);
- Marlin (372 points);
- WSP (370 points);
- Calvin (351 points);
- David Plummer (343 points); and
- RJ Behar (327 points)
Environmental/Ecological Engineering
- KHA (372 points); and
- Calvin (349 points)
ESCO/Renewable Energy Consulting
- WSP (369 points).
To ensure that a sufficient pool of firms is available to provide civil engineering services to the Town, the Committee established shortlists for “General Civil Engineering” and “Transportation Engineering,” limiting consideration for award to the top four (4) firms and the top three (3) firms respectively. The firms currently recommended for negotiation and potential awards, which are described in more detail below, are KHA, Marlin, Amec Foster, HW Lochner, Corradino, Calvin, and WSP.
KHA is a multidisciplinary consulting firm that offers its services to federal, state, and local government agencies. KHA has more than 50 years' experience providing civil engineering services to government agencies. The firm began as a transportation engineering firm and later became known for its specialized expertise in transportation planning and traffic engineering. Furthermore, KHA has had a long-standing working relationship with the Town. The firm has been involved in the development of several Town initiatives, such as the Stormwater Master Plan, the Capital Improvement Plan, and Stormwater Management Report. Aside from the several studies and plans that KHA has helped the Town develop, they have also been integral to the implementation of many of the Town's large roadway and drainage projects, such as the West Lakes A Drainage Basin Improvements Project and the Lake Patricia Roadway and Drainage Improvements Project.
Marlin is a mid-size firm with a long history of working with public entities throughout the State of Florida. In addition to a history of working with the Florida Department of Transportation (“FDOT”) on complex roadway projects, they have also worked with the City of Doral, the Town of Cutler Bay, the City of Palmetto Bay, and the City of Miami on projects of similar size and scope as those that would be performed under the Town's contract. This firm also has experience working with the Town, having been our previous provider of miscellaneous civil engineering services. For the most part, Marlin provides the Town with its expertise on traffic study review and analysis. They have also worked on some roadway improvement projects, the most recent ones being the NW 67th Avenue Widening Project and the NW 82nd Avenue and Oak Lane Improvement Project. In the Town's experience, the firm has responded timely to the Town's requests, and provides an overall high-quality level of work.
Amec Foster is a national firm that provides environmental consulting, engineering and design, and construction services with more than 3,300 professionals. The firm has offices located in every region of the state, including a local office in Miami Lakes. Due to their large staff and variety of expertise, Amec Foster is uniquely able to offer engineering and environmental services that range from civil, water, and geotechnical
engineering to environmental studies, survey and mapping, water quality monitoring, environmental site assessments, and every area in between. This broad range of expertise provides the Town the flexibility to assign general engineering projects with incidental environmental impacts to a firm that has the necessary experience in house to handle both types of work. The firm has worked with several large government agencies in South Florida, including the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County.
HW Lochner is a large, full-service, multi-discipline firm that has experience in Transportation Planning, Traffic Engineering, Roadway Design and Transit, Structures, Environmental, Aviation, Construction and Alternative Delivery, among others. The firm specializes in transportation planning, and emphasizes the importance of planning for reliable, convenient, and safe network of transportation options. HW Lochner has extensive experience managing municipal transportation planning, traffic engineering and design projects that lends itself to meeting the demands of our contract, and ensures our needs will be met in a satisfactory manner.
Corradino is a large firm that provides civil, traffic, and roadway engineering services to a variety of municipalities nationwide, including many in South Florida. The firm also has extensive experience working on Safe Routes to School (“SRTS”) and FDOT Local Agency Program (“LAP”) projects, which are of particular interest to the Town due to the LAP projects we have scheduled in the next few years. Corradino, with its knowledge of the LAP process, offers unique input into LAP's reporting and bidding requirements that will more easily guide us through these processes. They also have extensive experience in plan preparation and development, roadway design, maintenance of traffic, lighting design, utility coordination, signal design, signing and pavement marking design, and drainage design.
Calvin is a large company with more than 80 years of experience providing civil engineering services. The firm has a reputation for high quality work product and taking a personal approach with each of their clients. They take pride in their long-standing relationships with municipal clients, citing the large number of repeat contract awards with their public clients. Calvin has completed work for several South Florida municipalities, including Sunny Isles Beach, Bay Harbor Islands, Surfside, Medley, Bal Harbor, North Bay Village, Miami Springs, Miami Beach, Medley, Palmetto Bay, Weston, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Hollywood, North Miami Beach, and several more. Their experience working with both large and small municipalities alike, ensures that they are familiar with the type of projects the Town would have as a smaller municipality, while also having the ability to guide Town coordination with larger agencies on multi-agency projects.
WSP is a large, global firm that has provided engineering services for over 130 years. It is one of the oldest continuously operating consultant firms in the United States. The firm employs more than 34,000 professionals with experience in practically every engineering discipline. While the firm is recognized nationally, it has maintained a strong presence locally in the South Florida region, working with agencies such as Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, and FDOT Districts Four and Six. Having such vast resources at its disposal, WSP has dedicated a large team of qualified and experienced professionals toward serving the Town of Miami Lakes in a wide variety of specialties.
Based on the above, it is recommended that the Town Council authorize the Town Manager to negotiate with, and upon mutual agreement award contracts to, the top three (3) firms for “General Civil Engineering,” and “Transportation Engineering,” and all Proposers for the remaining disciplines. The Town's position is that any of the shortlisted firms, or any of the firms proposing in “Environmental Engineering” or “ESCO/Renewable Energy Consulting”, can provide the services required by the Town. As such, if negotiations with any of the top ranked, recommended firms in each discipline should fail, then negotiations should be conducted with the next highest ranked firm until the recommended number of firms in each discipline have agreed to contract with the Town.