Contractor Selection Dispute for DC Crime Lab

The District of Columbia's plans to build a state of the art crime lab hit a snag with a protest from one of the two proposers on the $133 million Design-Bid-Build project.

Tompkins Builders was the second highest ranked firm, and DC Mayor Adrian Fenty recommended to the Council of the District of Columbia that the contract be awarded to the highest ranked firm, Whiting-Turner. Tompkins protested to the city's Contract Appeals Board.

One of the issues in the dispute revolves around whether Tompkins met the responsibility criteria for the project of having completed construction of a LEED building and a similar scientific laboratory building, each for $75 million and each within the last five years. Tompkins argued that its parent company Turner Construction Company, met the responsibility criteria.

On May 21, 2009, the Contract Appeals Board ruled that the decision of the city to "exclude Tompkins from the competition because it did not satisfy the special standards of responsibility was unreasonable and irrational." The Board directed that the city perform a new evaluation of Tompkins' proposal.

On May 28, 2009, Council Chairman Vincent Gray announced that he was withdrawing from consideration by the Council the proposed contract with Whiting-Turner, as Mayor Adrian Fenty had recommended.

For a description of the process and the appeal, visit the Council's page here.

Visit the web page for the Contract Appeals Board to read their decision.

To read other documents in the appeal process, click here.

In order to ensure a fair and open process for contractors and provide the public with the best outcome, it is critical that Design-Build competition and bidder responsibility criteria be handled with extreme care by government agencies. It also points out the importance of anticipating in RFP documents how to handle and evaluate certain situations such as whether a parent company's experiences can be used by a contractor, and how to evaluate the experiences of a joint venture formed specifically for a project.