Professional Architectural Consulting Services

The purpose of this competitive process is to ensure Pinellas County compliance with Section 287.055 Florida Statutes known as the “Consultants’ Competitive Negotiation Act” (CCNA). The CCNA establishes contracting procedures by which counties must select architects, professional engineers, landscape architects, and surveyors and mappers (“Professional Firms”) for architectural, engineering, landscaping and mapping services (“Professional Services”). The CCNA process allows for professional firms to be chosen on quality of personnel, minority business enterprise consideration, past performance, willingness to meet time and budget requirements, location, workload, and volume of work previously awarded to each Professional Firm by the County.

Project Details

• Reference ID: 26-0492-RFQ-CCNAC
• Department: CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
• Department Head: Bill Greer (Director)

Important Dates

• Questions Due: 2026-05-04T19:00:00.000Z

Addenda

• Addendum #1 (released 2026-04-21T19:39:41.713Z) —

  Please use the See What Changed link to view all the changes made by this addendum.

  Added missing attachments Human Trafficking Affidavit and Foreign Countries of Concern Affidavit.  Updated vendor question three to remove reference to Truth in Negotiations as it is part of the sample agreement attached. 

   

Evaluation Criteria

• Ability of Firm and its Professional Personnel, Willingness and Ability to Meet Schedule and Budget Based on Current and Projected Workload. Evaluation of the firm’s overall approach. (425 pts) —
  1. Reviews the level of qualifications and experience of the firm and project team and appropriateness of the organization of the project team.
  2. Reviews the professional resources available to properly provide services as requested in the RFQ document.
  3. Reviews the project team to ensure the team proposed contains all of the critical disciplines required.
  4. Prime team proposed should have exceptional professional resources to properly provide services.
  5. The project manager and proposed team should be uniquely qualified to provide the desired services.
  6. Evaluates the workload commitments that will impact the firm’s ability to complete services on schedule.
  7. The submittal should demonstrate that the firm has adequate time available and personnel to compete services on schedule and additional backup staffing capability in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
  8. Evaluation of the firm’s overall approach including experience in scheduling projects, systems that will be used to keep track of the project schedule, cost control, quality assurance and quality control, issues and methods employed to avoid cost overruns and project delays.
  9. Evaluation of the overall approach to the project proposed by the firm and the appropriateness of the methods proposed to plan, design and administer the project in relation to the scope of work and County requirements.
• Firm Experience with Projects of Similar Size and Past Performance (375 pts) —
  1. Reviews the firms experience with projects of similar size, type and scope and the performance on those specific projects.
  2. The prime firm must have adequate, recent (within the past five years) experience with projects of similar type as defined in the RFQ document.
  3. Experience pertaining to specific Pinellas County projects may also be considered. Pinellas County staff shall not however furnish references for such projects.
  4. The scope of services provided should represent projects that are similar to those defined in the RFQ document.
  5. The overall performance of the firm relative to projects of similar size and scope should be evaluated.
• Volume of Work Previously Awarded by the County (50 pts) —

  Pre-populated by the Purchasing, the purpose of this criterion is to affect an equitable distribution of contracts. This criterion is evaluated based on CCNA Continuing contract value encumbered to a firm during the (2) previous completed fiscal years through current to date. The points are worth 5 percent of the overall points available and are distributed as follows:

  $0 - $200,000 – 5% of points available

  $200,001 - $400,000 – 4% of points available

  $400,001 – $600,000 – 3% of points available

  $600,001- $800,000 – 2% of points available

  $800,001 - $1,000,000 – 1% of points available

  Over $1,000,000 – 0% of points available

  Based on a typical 1,000-point evaluation scoring process, a firm deemed to be in the $0-$200,000 category threshold would be allotted 50 points etc.

• Minority Business Status (25 pts) —

  Provides points pre-populated by the Purchasing Department for minority business status as designated by the Florida State Office of Supplier Diversity, Department of Management Services. If the firm, or its sub-contractors, is designated as a minority business by the Florida State Office of Supplier Diversity, Department of Management Services, 2.5% of the total evaluation points are awarded. If the firm does not have minority business status as per the Florida State Office of Supplier Diversity, Department of Management Services, 0% of the points available are awarded.

• Pinellas County Small Business Enterprise (SBE) Status (100 pts) —

  Provides points pre-populated by the Purchasing Department for SBE status as designated by Pinellas County. To qualify, a firm or its sub consultants must be located in one of 4 counties (Pinellas / Hillsborough / Pasco / Manatee) and have annual sales of goods/services not exceeding the maximum 3 year average of 3 million dollars or gross revenues not exceeding 8 million dollars for construction and not exceed a maximum 3 year average of 50 employees.

  Prime firm or sub-consultant must directly associate Small Business Enterprise (SBE) and be an integral part as defined by CCNA Florida Statute Section 287.055 and cannot consist of vendors or suppliers from office supply, printing services, etc.

  If the prime firm is certified as a Pinellas County SBE, 100 points will be awarded. If the prime firm is not a certified Pinellas County SBE and utilizes 1 certified Pinellas County SBE as sub-consultant, 50 points will be awarded. If the prime firm utilizes more than 1 certified Pinellas County SBE as sub-consultant, 75 points will be awarded. Failure to utilize certified sub-consultants, as presented in your submittal and evaluated accordingly may affect future awards to your company. A prime firm or sub-consultant must be certified through Pinellas County Economic Development as an SBE prior to submission of your proposal document. If the firm nor any of its sub-consultants are not certified as Pinellas County SBE, 0% of the points available will be awarded.

  Proposer must provide complete SBE Status Form (Attachment A).

• Location (25 pts) —

  Provides points pre-populated by the Purchasing Department. Evaluates the location of the project team relative to Pinellas County including the prime firm and project manager. If firm has an established office located in Pinellas, Manatee, Hillsborough or Pasco counties, 25 points are awarded. If not, no points will be awarded.

Submission Requirements

• Proposal (without Cost Proposal) (required) —

  Please Upload your COMPLETE Proposal here. Upload fee proposal separately in the next step.

• Separate Cost Proposal (required) —

  Confirm that your fee proposal is not attached in your Proposal and is attached separately here.

• Bid Bond (required) —

  Each bid shall be accompanied by a certified cashier’s check, or bid bond, in the amount of XXXXXof the total bid price, payable toPinellas County, as a guarantee that the bidder, if its bid is accepted, will promptly execute the Agreement. The bidder shall guarantee the total bid price for a period of 60 days from the date of the bid opening.

  Please scan and upload a copy of your bid bond/cashier's check. Bidder must also MAIL bid guarantee with a postmarked date no later thanThursday, May 14, 2026 addressed to:

  Pinellas County
  Deron deFreese, CPPB
  509 East Ave. S.
  Clearwater,FL33765

  Please have the Bidder Name, Contract Title ("Professional Architectural Consulting Services"), and Contract Number ("26-0492-RFQ-CCNAC") listed clearly on the outside of the envelope.

• Contract Execution, Payment Bond, Performance Bond, and Certificate(s) of Insurance (required) —

  The contract shall be executed by the successful bidder and shall be returned, together with the Payment Bond, Performance Bond and Certificate(s) of Insurance to Pinellas County so that it is received within 14 working daysafter the bidder has received the contract for execution. Failure to do so shall be just cause for forfeiture of the proposal guaranty.

• Proposal Requirements (required) —

  Did you Read through and confirm that you met all of the proposal requirements?

• Upload Complete Submittal (required)
• Acknowledgement (required) —

  Please note there are two attachments/affidavits which will have to be completed and signed by the AWARDEE. These are not to be returned with your submittal.

  1. Human Trafficking Affidavit

  2. Foreign Countries of Concern Affidavit

   

• Bid Bond (required) —

  Will this solicitation require a bid bond?

• Electronic Pricing Table (required) —

  Would you like to have bidders respond to an electronic pricing table through ProcureNow?

  Some examples of of when to say "yes":

  1. This is a quote for goods or commodities
  2. This is a public works bid, with a pricing table that can be uploaded into ProcureNow from an excel spreadsheet
  3. Seeking services for hourly rate schedules
• Separate Fee Proposal Upload (required) —

  If you are NOT using the Electronic Pricing Table option, will you want your bidder to separate a Price Proposal from the rest of their Response? You'll want to do this if you open your bids initially WITHOUT showing price, and then come back in after a technical evaluation to unseal pricing later.

• Evaluation Committee? (required) —

  Will there be an evaluation committee to review the proposals and score them based on weights and multiple criteria?

Questions & Answers