The Future Station One

Part Seven - Station 1 RFP Process

A Request for Proposal (RFP) that was published on December 9, 2020, with a legal notice on the fire district website and on the website for Bidnet Direct. Additionally, the RFP was emailed to vendors that had previously contacted us to express interest.

We were notified by 24 groups of their intent to participate in our process. We next scheduled site visits with each group over 4 days in January of 2021. During the site visits, we captured questions that we had not addressed in the original RFP, and we issued an Addendum on January 22^nd to provide all vendors the same information. We issued a second addendum on February 18^th in response to additional questions that were submitted following the site visits.

A total of 13 proposals were received by the deadline on March 15, 2021. Each proposal was reviewed against the criteria that were requested be included. One proposal failed to meet the requested submittal requirements and was excluded from the process. The remaining 12 proposals were provided to the division chiefs and to the two district board members assigned to the building committee for review. The review committee was requested to select the top proposals they felt best meet the needs and expectations established in the RFP. The committee agreed on the top 4 proposals. These 4 groups were invited to present their proposal to the building committee and answer questions on April 20^th and 21^st.

Following the presentations the committee eliminated one proposal. Site visits were scheduled to fire stations that had been constructed by each of the three remaining groups in May. The committee discussed their impressions of the stations visited, pros and cons of the station, as well as the conversations that were had with either the project lead for the fire district that was visited, or the firefighters on shift at that station during the visit. The committee agreed on the top two proposals and subsequently a consensus was reached to make a recommendation to the District Board that a contract be pursued with the group F+D International and Symmetry Builders Inc. as a design-build team.

Throughout this process the district board was updated each month on the status of items related to Station 1 as part of the Chief’s report. These items included updates on the status of the land owned by Denver Mountain Parks adjacent to the primary properties where Station 1 will be constructed, how many site visits and proposals were received, etc. The 3 board members that were not serving on the building committee were provided with copies of the RFP, its addendums, and the top proposals to review. At the June 8, 2021 Board meeting Chief Weege presented the recommendation of the building committee that the design team, F+D International with Symmetry Builders, be accepted by the Board and that a contract be initiated. The Board engaged in some discussion about the merits of the proposals and heard comments from the community over the intent to use funds from strategic capital to construct the station. Director Anderson made a motion to accept the recommendation of the building committee, seconded by Director Gregory, the motion carried. Chief Weege was directed to move forward with contract negotiations.

A contract was signed with F+D International for the design and project management of the construction for Station 1 in October 2021. The building committee has continued to meet monthly working with the architects on the conceptual design for the new station.