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Protest alleging that awardee’s proposal was technically unacceptable is denied. The agency sought lease proposals for office space in attractive, prestigious, and professional surroundings. The protester alleged that the awardee’s property was in a skeezy industrial area and thus should have been found unacceptable. But GAO found that that the extent the agency had made an evaluation error with blighted property, the protester had not been prejudiced. The protester’s property was only 300 feet from the awardee’s. If the awardee’s property was too to run-down for the agency, so was the protester’s.

The Department of Veterans Affairs posted a request for lease proposals seeking office space in Fairbanks Alaska. The solicitation provided that if the property proposed were in the city center, it had to be in a commercial office district with “attractive, prestigious, and professional surroundings.” Award would be made to the offeror with the lowest-price technically acceptable proposal.

The VA awarded the lease to G2 Construction. An unsuccessful offeror, Command and Control Construction, LLC, protested the award. Command and Control argued that G2’s property was not in attractive, prestigious and professional surroundings. Rather, Command and Control argued, G2 pad proposed a property in a run-down industrial area.

The VA asked GAO to dismiss the protest, alleging that Command and Control was not an interested party. A protester is not an interested party if it does not challenge an intervening offeror that would precede its own eligibility under the solicitation. Here, the VA argued, two other offerors submitted technically acceptable proposals with prices lower than Command and Control’s.

But GAO determined that Command Control had not challenged the intervening offerors proposals because, based on the information it received with the notice of award, the company had no way of knowing that there were two intervening offerors. It was not until the protester received the agency report that it learned there were intervening offerors.

The VA also argued that the attractive-prestigious-professional requirements did not apply because they only applied to property proposed in the city center, and G2 had not proposed a property in the city center. GAO, however, found that both G2 and Command and Control appeared to have proposed properties in the city center. The record, GAO found, did not show why the evaluators had believed the city center requirements did not apply.

Nevertheless, GAO determined, Command and Control had not been prejudiced by any evaluation error. Command and Control had proposed a property that was only 300 feet away from G2’s. To the extent the VA had erred is deeming G2’s proposal acceptable, the same error would have applied to Command and Control’s proposal.

Command and Control also alleged that G2’s proposed property was not connected to sidewalks as required by the solicitation. The record, however, showed that the VA had determined that both G2 and Command and Control had proposed properties in areas without public sidewalks. When there is a discrepancy between the offered product and the stated requirement, a deviation from the requirement may be waived if there is no prejudice to other offerors. Here, Command and Control had not shown that it had been prejudiced by the waiver of the sidewalk requirement. It had not shown that it would have submitted a different proposal if it had known the agency would waive this requirement.

Command and Control is represented by Mathias C. Baasch. The agency is represented by Deborah K. Morrell and Natica Chapman Neely of the Department of Veterans Affairs. GAO attorneys Heather Self and Peter H. Tran participated in the preparation of the decisi