Active SLED Opportunity · ARIZONA · CITY OF TUCSON
AI Summary
The City of Tucson seeks qualified firms for specialized landscape and maintenance services for Green Stormwater Infrastructure assets. Services include routine maintenance, herbicide application, cistern maintenance, outreach, reconstruction, watering, and irrigation repair. The solicitation is open through April 10, 2030, with an initial submission deadline of May 22, 2025.
The City of Tucson herein referred to as “City,” requests proposals from qualified firms for specialized landscape and other maintenance services for Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) assets located on public property in Tucson. GSI assets are comprised of inlets and outlets/overflows, earthworks (such as basins, berms, and swales) that contain and direct the flow of water, as well as the vegetation within and adjacent to these features. Maintenance of GSI assets ensures the physical structures and landscaped features designed to capture and use stormwater runoff from hardscape are clear of trash/debris, invasive vegetation, and sediment; and that the rockwork is structurally sound and trees are not blocking pedestrian or vehicle site visibility or access. GSI maintenance requires a holistic and careful approach to ensure the City’s investments in these assets are maintained in a manner that reflects their value as a public resource and part of the City’s infrastructure. Contractors will primarily perform services for the City of Tucson’s GSI Storm to Shade Program (https://tucsonaz.gov/gsi), which is administered by Tucson Water and will follow procedures outlined in the City Storm to Shade Program GSI Maintenance Manual version 1 (2022), pending publication of v.2 (2025) and the City Landscape Maintenance Manual (2021).
The City may award by group or by combination of groups that provide the following services. Proposals will be accepted from vendors for one or more than one group, or any combination of groups. Responses must state which groups service can be provided and with specific reference to contractor experience providing those services. The Scope of Work is based on anticipated needs and available funding. The City reserves the right to adjust the scope on an as-needed, if-needed basis.
Group 1 – Routine GSI Landscape and Structure Maintenance
Group 2 – Certified Herbicide Application
Group 3 – Rainwater Harvesting Cistern Maintenance
Group 4 - Consultation, Outreach, Instruction and/or Data Collection
Group 5 – GSI Reconstruction
Group 6 – Manual or Truck Watering
Group 7 – Irrigation System Oversight and Repair
Open and Continuous Solicitation
This solicitation will be open and continuous through April 10, 2030, meaning that the City will accept proposals from prospective offerors at any time through April 10, 2030. The initial submittal period is open through 2:00pm Local AZ Time on May 22, 2025. Per Addendum #2, the City intends to review proposals once a year in May. Offers may be evaluated sooner or later at the City's discretion. Successful offerors will be awarded a contract and placed on the City's Qualified Vendor List for Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) Landscape Maintenance.
Storm to Shade (S2S) is the City of Tucson’s green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) program, which builds and maintains GSI on public land throughout the City. GSI is defined as landscape features that capture and infiltrate stormwater runoff from impermeable surfaces to support native vegetation. GSI provides a multitude of benefits, including cooling the urban environment; improving soil, air, and water quality; and beautifying communities through the addition of green space. S2S is part of the City of Tucson’s comprehensive response to the Climate Emergency declared in 2020 and ongoing drought as a low-cost, sustainable, and effective means of cooling the urban environment while conserving potable and reclaimed water resources.
S2S launched as a pilot program in January 2021 and was made permanent by Mayor and Council in June 2023. The program is funded by a consumption-based fee on residential and commercial Tucson Water customers in the City of Tucson. In FY2024, the fee funded seasonal maintenance for ~500 GSI assets. However, through the S2S Construction Program, new GSI is being built and added to the S2S Maintenance Program annually, in addition to select GSI built by other City departments or partners.
GSI contractors are issued work orders through City of Tucson Hexagon Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) System for seasonal preventative maintenance and follow up visits to conduct specialized GSI maintenance. Contractors report on work accomplished using an app used on contractor-provided devices. Through this work, S2S is building a workforce that can expand and sustain the community’s GSI and urban forest over time and helping create pathways for skilled and well-paid jobs in the green industry. This contract provides predictable, scalable work that helps landscape contractors scale and build capacity. The contract also occasionally provides specialized GSI training to build knowledge and skills in the industry to support GSI over the long-term.
For more information and background visit: https://climateaction.tucsonaz.gov/pages/gsi
The Storm to Shade Annual Report for FY24 has been included in the attachments to the solicitation.
Please use the See What Changed link to view all the changes made by this addendum.
Storm to Shade will be doing a non-mandatory visit to some GSI sites on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 from 3:30PM to 4:30PM Local AZ Time.
With Brooke Bushman (Maintenance Program Manager) & Blue Baldwin (S2S Program Superintendent)
3:30PM Rincon Heights Chicanes: Meet at intersection of 9th St and Mountain, and tour assets between Mountain and Santa Rita
4:00PM Ironhorse Park Stormwater Harvesting Basins: Meet at intersection of 10th St and 1st Ave
Please also see the GSI Asset Inventory for locations S2S maintained GSI assets throughout the City:
ITEM ONE (1): REVIEW FREQUENCY
The review frequency for new proposals has been hereby changed to once annually, to occur every May. The next active review of new proposals received after November 2025 will occur after May 1st, 2026.
Please use the See What Changed link to view all the changes made by this addendum.
In your responses, please include reference to the specific experience as listed in the Scope of Work for each Group you are applying for.
For all Groups for which you are applying:
Provide price proposal as requested on the Price Page attached herein, listed for each proposed Group and listed as cost per hour.
If your business owns large equipment required for any of the Groups for which you are applying, list those on the price page.
As stated in the Instructions to Offerors. Discounts, the price(s) herein can be discounted by _______%, if payment is made within ______ days. These payment terms shall apply to all purchases and to all payment methods.
Cooperative Purchasing allows other public agencies to piggyback on the City of Tucson’s contracts. Will your firm provide the City of Tucson, as the lead agency on this regional contract, a rebate in the form of a percentage of sales based upon the other agencies sales?
Please upload any arborist or herbicide applicator licenses that your staff holds, if applicable.
Please ensure that all required information is included with your response.
Please upload your response to the Evaluation Criteria.
Please upload your Pricing Proposal using the Price Page in the attachments.
Please upload your signed Offer and Acceptance form.
Please note: The City of Tucson is a public agency subject to public records laws. Therefore, all requests to withhold information from the public record must be accompanied by justification. Pricing will not be held confidential.
If you answered yes, then you must use this field to identify the sections of your submittal that you are requesting be withheld from public record.
If sections are not identified as confidential in this field, your request to hold information confidential may not be accepted.
Please note: The City of Tucson is a public agency subject to public records laws. Therefore, all requests to withhold information from the public record must be accompanied by justification. Pricing will not be held confidential.
In accordance with Instructions to Offerors - Exceptions to Contract Provisions, any exceptions that an offeror wishes to submit for the City's consideration must be indicated here in order to be considered.
Will Living Wage Requirements be a part of the resulting contract?
Please select the required language that should be included under Special Terms and Conditions for this project. Please select all that apply.
Please select the additional insurance coverages required for this project. Please select all that apply.
What is the initial term of the contract?
Please use the following format: one (1)
Even if you selected auto renewal, you need to add the initial term, i.e. one (1)
Will renewal options be given with this contract?
If you selected Auto Renewal, select No.
What is the renewal term of the contract?
Please use the following format: four (4)
If no extension options will be given or you selected automatic renewals, please enter "N/A".
Will you build the pricing table in OpenGov Procurement?
If you will be requesting the pricing to be provided by the vendor outside of the OpenGov system, have you attached the required document to this solicitation?
Do you have any attachments?
Q (Questions Submitted via Email: C.1. Group 1: Routine GSI Landscape & Structure Maintenance (RGSI-L&SM): - Page 17):
A: 1. Can you provide a list of all locations of the COT/GSI maintenance contract for an initial site visit? 2. If awarded the RGSI-L&SM contract, it appears that it will be based on time and materials? 3. Or will an annual contracted amount be established based on the hourly rate for this service category, allowing for consistent and reliable crew scheduling throughout the year? 1. There is not a list available of each GSI preventative maintenance (PM) route, but we do have our GSI Asset Inventory map available publicly that shows the potential areas you might be assigned: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/521c0f2294a54635a991f12979a37300. Each “route” is made up of anywhere from 1 large GSI asset up to a group of ~45 individual GSI assets. Individual assets are shown as dots on the map. About 600 of the assets on the map have contractors performing PM work orders on them at least once every 3 months (or 4 times/year). The S2S program is adding about 100 new assets annually. The other assets are maintained by neighborhood groups. If to make this contract worthwhile, you require a certain amount of guaranteed work, please reference that somehow in your response. 2. Correct. However please note that the resulting contracts from this solicitation will be annual requirements with renewal options up to a five (5) year term. 3. No. Since this specialized GSI maintenance work is so new, we are still determining the true cost of the work using time and materials cost data. It is true that work may vary based on the time of year and the weather (lots of rain or no rain/high temps) influencing how much work there is, but a quarterly inspection at each asset is proving valuable.
Q (Questions Submitted via Email: E.5. Price: -Page 17):
A: 1. Could you please share the overall annual budget allocated for the department or GSI Program? 2. Is the utilization of the allocated funds time-sensitive, such that any unspent budget may be subject to reallocation or forfeiture? 3. Or does the city operate under a monthly or quarterly budget utilization strategy, with an emphasis on maintaining expenditures within the overall approved budget for the fiscal year? 1. Please see the S2S Annual Report FY24 for this information under Attachments. 2. No. 3. Yes.
SLED stands for State, Local, and Education. These are solicitations issued by state governments, counties, cities, school districts, utilities, and higher education institutions — as opposed to federal agencies.
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