Protest alleging that agency should have found the awardee unacceptable is sustained. The solicitation required offerors to propose facilities with permanent restrooms. The awardee’s restrooms were a wheeled trailer resting on wooden and concrete blocks. GAO opined that the agency had failed to explain how it found this trailer to be a permanent structure.
Background
The Navy awarded a contract for fire-fighting training courses to Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies (MITAGS). An unsuccessful offeror, WRG Fire Training Simulation Solutions, protested.
WRG argued the Navy should have found MITAGS’s proposal unacceptable. The solicitation required that offerors’ facilities include a permanent structure with male and female restrooms. WRG contended MITAGS’s restrooms were not permanent; instead, they were simply a wheeled trailer sitting on wooden and concrete blocks.
Legal Analysis
The Navy attempted to argue that the bathrooms MITAGS proposed were acceptable and qualified as permanent because they had been placed on concrete piers. GAO, however, saw nothing in the record to support the claim that the restrooms were mounted on concrete piers. Moreover, the Navy had failed to provide a credible explanation as to how the wheeled trailer satisfied the requirement for a “permanent structure.” Indeed, since the protest had been filed. the trailer bathrooms had been removed and replaced with a port a potties. This indicated that the trailer had not, in fact, been permanent.
WRG is represented by Mark G. Jackson of Jackson Holcomb LLP. The intervenor, MITAGS, is represented by John M. Manfredonia and Sarah C. Reida of Manfredonia Law Office, LLC. The agency is represented by D. Thomas Wilson and Patrick D. Healy of the Navy. GAO attorneys Heather Self and Peter H. Tran participated in the preparation of the decision.