Sources Sought - Department of State Natural Hazard Engineering & Design Services IDIQ Recompete

Active

Contract Opportunity

**SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE**

Interest/Sources Sought Announcement for Professional Natural Hazards Engineering and Design Services for OBO DOS Diplomatic Facilities Worldwide

This notice is to solicit interest for Professional Natural Hazards Engineering and Design Services to the Department of State (DOS), Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations’ (OBO). Work is anticipated to primarily be in support of OBO’s Natural Hazards Adaptation Program, which seeks to facilitate U.S. Department of State missions in preparing for and adapting to natural hazards including earthquakes, floods, landslides, extreme wind (tropical cyclones and tornado), tsunamis, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, extreme heat events, and water stress. Offerors will need to demonstrate the capability to provide natural hazards engineering and design services for new and existing facilities at various foreign diplomatic missions overseas.

Up to four (4) indefinite quantity/indefinite delivery (IDIQ) contracts will be awarded. The majority of work is anticipated to be completed by structural and civil engineers to address earthquake engineering evaluations and design, and flood inundation evaluation and adaptative design, respectively, but studies, assessments, evaluations, and designs for other natural hazards may be required. Furthermore, assessment and design scopes may include related considerations and require services of other disciplines given the integrated nature of building performance (e.g., seismic retrofits or flood adaptation may necessitate architectural, mechanical, and/or electrical evaluation/design services), so the offerors’ teams shall have access to a multi-disciplinary team to cover all necessary design disciplines for comprehensive assessments and design solutions.

Task orders may require, but not be limited to developing natural hazard design parameters and exposure maps (e.g., limited seismicity updates, flood modeling and map development, wind speed studies) either at the regional/city and/or site-specific scale; conducting building and/or site vulnerability assessments (e.g. rapid visual screening of buildings for potential seismic hazards, flood vulnerability assessments, wind vulnerability assessments) across the global diplomatic portfolio; whole mission resilience adaptation assessments; and detailed building or site-specific analyses and design development. Other tasks may include research/literature reviews; assisting in evolving the way OBO conducts global portfolio natural hazard risk assessments; development of toolsets; enhancing emergency preparedness and rapid mobilizations providing engineering support to missions in areas having experienced a natural disaster; assistance in developing or updating GIS-based global natural hazard exposure data; and/or general advisement on matters related to OBO’s mission of managing overseas diplomatic platforms and managing its natural hazard risks. The work may require travel to overseas U.S. diplomatic missions.

All proposals will be categorized into one of two specialties based on the focus area selected by the Offeror and should be consistent with the prime contractor’s area of expertise: Earthquake Engineering (structural engineering team prime), or Flood Evaluation and Adaptive Design (civil engineering team prime specializing in flood evaluation and adaptive design). Offerors must clearly indicate in the proposal the specialty being proposed. Offerors are allowed to participate in both specialties either as a prime contractor and/or as part of other prime Offeror’s team; however, can be the prime Offeror on only one proposal submitted for each specialty.

Though the Government intends to make awards in this way, all proposals will be evaluated against all evaluation factors, and the Offerors are expected to be capable of executing task orders for all work identified in the Solicitation. Accordingly, all offerors’ proposals are expected to have multi-disciplinary team of in-house and/or sub-consultants (project management, architecture, geotechnical, mechanical, electrical, adaptation professionals, and cost estimating) with an appropriate hierarchical composition (principles, senior engineers, junior engineers, clerical, drafters, etc.) having demonstrated experience and competency of completing comprehensive multi-hazard assessments inclusive of studies, assessments, evaluations, and designs for other natural hazards.

Under each of these IDIQ contracts, the Government guarantees a minimum of $6,000 for the life of the contract. Separate task orders will be competed under these contracts, as necessary, during the execution of the contract to authorize services. Each contract will be for a one-year period from the date of contract award with four one-year option periods. Contract duration shall not exceed five years. The maximum task orders awarded over the length of each contract shall not exceed $12.5 million.

Selection procedures and awards will be made in accordance with FAR Part 36 for Architectural and Engineering services.

The Phase 1 Pre-Qualification announcement is currently planned to be posted on SAM.gov in or around June 2025.

1. Eligibility to Perform Under Contract:
   
   
   
   
   1. Successful offerors must possess or be able to obtain a Department of Defense (DOD) Secret or Top-Secret Facility Clearance (FCL), with Secret safeguarding authorization, issued in accordance with the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM), DOD 5220.22-M. Personnel requiring access to classified information or Controlled Access Areas (CAAs) at DoS sites must possess Secret or Top-Secret personnel security clearances issued by DSS prior to performance.
   
   
   2. FCL Sponsorship will be given if needed (see below Section B). Sponsorship does not guarantee that the firm will receive the clearance.
   
   
   3. Subcontractors who will require access to classified information or CAA spaces must also possess a Secret or Top Secret FCL and personnel clearances prior to performance.
   
   
   4. The intention is to award at least one contract to a firm already possessing a Top-Secret FCL, and at least one contract to a firm already possessing a Secret FCL; therefore, favorable consideration will be given to firms with an existing Top Secret FCL and existing Secret FCL.
   
   
   5. Firms who possess Secret FCLs may be sponsored for an upgrade to Top-Secret after contract award.
   
   
   6. Offerors must submit their appropriate Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code with the required qualification documentation.
   
   
   
   


2. If a selected offeror does not already possess an Interim or Final Secret FCL, the Department of State will sponsor the firm for a Secret FCL.
   
   
   
   1. DoS will also sponsor joint ventures for an FCL; however, each entity comprising a joint venture must possess or be able to obtain an FCL prior to issuance of an FCL to the joint venture. Sponsorship does not guarantee that the firm will receive the clearance.
   
   
   2. A period of six calendar months from award of the contract will be allowed for this offeror to obtain the necessary FCL. After this period the Government may, at its discretion, consider awarding a contract to another firm.
   
   
   3. Contracts cannot be awarded until selected firms receive an FCL.
   
   
   
   

If you are interested in participating in this procurement, interested offerors shall provide notification of interest to Michele Appello at appelloma@state.gov by 11:59 P.M. ET on Friday, June 13, 2025. Please provide the following in your interest response.

Reference: 19AQMM25RNHASVC

Point of Contact(s) First and Last Name:

Company Name:

Contact Info (Phone number and Email address):

This notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes and DOES NOT constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a commitment on the part of the government to conduct a solicitation for the above-listed services in the future. Responders are advised that the government will not pay for information submitted in response to this source sought, nor will it compensate responders for any costs incurred in the development/furnishing of a response.

Please note that a decision not to submit a response to this RFI will not preclude a vendor from participating in any future solicitation.

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