(a)

1. (1) The Arkansas Department of Transportation may require that the proposers, or possibly only the design-builder, or any component firms/personnel be prequalified prior to execution of the DBA with the department.
2. (2) Where required by state or federal law, the design-builder must be able to provide design or construction services by licensed or registered professional engineers in the state.
3. (3) The department standard prequalification requirements should apply to each firm providing construction services.
4. (4) The contractor prequalification requirements would apply to each firm based on the applicable category or categories for which that firm provides services on the project.
5. (5) Each firm or personnel required to be prequalified must be prequalified prior to the date established in the procurement documents.

(b)

1. (1) The date stipulated for prequalification can vary with the size and complexity of the project and the procurement process.

2. (2) The following dates are suggested as possible deadlines for prequalification depending on the requirements of the project:

   1. (A) Fourteen (14) days prior to SOQ submission date;
   2. (B) SOQ submission date;
   3. (C) Thirty (30) days prior to proposal submission date; or
   4. (D) Proposal submission date.
3. (3) Recognizing that in the pursuit of a large project, a large number of the proposers and their component firms and personnel may be based out-of-state.
4. (4) If prequalification were required of all teams at or near the RFQ stage, the project prequalification requirements could cause considerable activity by the department reviewing firms or personnel prequalification of ultimately unsuccessful proposers who may not subsequently provide any services to the project after the department expended the time/effort to prequalify.

(c)

1. (1) It may be in the department’s best interest to limit prequalification verification or implementation to the selected:

   1. (A) Short-list proposer (design-builder);
   2. (B) Component firms; and
   3. (C) Personnel.

2. (2) In such case, the following dates are suggested:

   1. (A) Thirty (30) days prior to DBA execution date; or
   2. (B) DBA execution date.
3. (3) If a component firm cannot meet the requirements by the date required, then the selected proposer should be required to develop a plan to replace the impacted firm with another firm approved by the department and capable to meet the requirements.
4. (4) Ultimately, if the selected proposer is unable to find an adequate replacement, then the department may close negotiations with the selected proposer and enter negotiations with the next highest ranking proposer.
5. (5) All department standard prequalification requirements should also be applied to a design-builder that might submit an unsolicited project proposal (UPP).
6. (6) A further discussion of a UPP is included as Appendix C.