Massachusetts General Laws
Chapter 149a - Public Construction Alternative Delivery Methods
Section 19 - Design Build Contracts; Request for Proposals; Bid Deposit

Section 19. The awarding authority shall issue an RFP to each design build entity that has been prequalified to receive an RFP pursuant to section 17. In addition to identifying the date by which the RFP is to be submitted to the awarding authority, the following requirements shall apply to an RFP issued pursuant to this section, unless noted otherwise:
(1) The RFP shall set forth a detailed scope of work including design concepts, technical requirements, performance criteria, construction requirements, time constraints and all other requirements that have a substantial impact on the cost, schedule and quality of the public works project and the project development process, as determined by the awarding authority.
(2) The RFP shall include the criteria for evaluating and ranking proposals.
(3) The RFP shall identify the cost basis, low-bid or best value, by which the awarding authority will evaluate proposals submitted in response to said RFP. For projects to be awarded on a best-value basis, the scoring process, quality criteria and relative weight thereof must be contained in the RFP.
(4) At the awarding authority's discretion, the RFP may provide for a process, including the establishment of a team, to review conceptual technical submittals before full proposal submittal for the purposes of identifying defects that would cause rejection of the proposal as non-responsive.
(5) All such technical conceptual submittals and responses shall remain confidential until after the award of the contract.
(6) The RFP shall require that every response shall be accompanied by a bid deposit in the form of a bid bond, or cash, or a certified check on, or a treasurer's or cashier's check issued by, a responsible bank or trust company, payable to the awarding authority. The amount of such bid deposit shall be 5 per cent of the value of the bid. Any person submitting a bid under this section shall, on such bid, certify as follows:
The undersigned certifies under penalties of perjury that this bid is in all respects bona fide, fair and made without collusion or fraud with any other person. As used in this paragraph the word ''person'' shall mean any natural person, joint venture, partnership, corporation or other business or legal entity.
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(Name of person signing bid)
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(Company)
The RFP may provide for a stipend upon terms specified in the RFP to unsuccessful proposers that submit proposals that conform to the requirements of the RFP; but, the awarding authority may only use ideas and designs contained in non-successful proposals if a stipend, as defined in the RFP, is paid to the proposer.

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