How to Win RFPs
Everyone’s got a shot to win the contract with a public school, thanks to the requirement of RFPs. (As sophisticated businessman Lloyd Christmas says, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”) From Bisnow’s Higher Education & Student Housing Summit in Baltimore yesterday, here are three ways to increase those odds.
1) Go beyond the pro forma
Universities aren’t development specialists. (You develop the buildings, they'll develop the minds that will eventually help you develop the buildings.) They’re looking for your expertise, says Johns Hopkins’ David McDonough (whom we snapped with EdR’s Jeff Resetco). Hopkins starts with an RFI, as it did for 3200 St. Paul in Baltimore’s Charles Village. The university needed guidance on the number of beds/units for its market-rate housing vision and number of parking spaces, as well as help with the retail and streetscape (the RFP for that last one comes out next week). The RFI responses informed the RFP, and a half-dozen of the 20 that responded to the RFI were invited to submit more technical RFPs that factor in zoning issues and density. David says submitters needed to respond to the RFP’s specifics, but Hopkins also welcomes additional ideas.
Jeff (with RBC Capital Markets’ Michael Baird, Dave, Millane Partners’ Joanie Millane, Morgan State University’s Kevin Banks, and our moderator, Ballard Spahr’s Teri Guarnaccia) adds that EdR responds to RFPs' strict parameters to get in the door but suggests alternatives at the table. For example, it told an SEC school that wanted two phases of residential with two parking garages that one garage would boost land-use and construction efficiency.
2) Don’t wait for the RFP
EdR is big on RFPs. It responds to as many as 30 a year (employing a staffer to work on them full-time), Jeff says. Still, the firm encourages universities to talk with the firm prior to issuing RFPs. The school gets free advice and EdR can show the school what it’s doing elsewhere and get a sharper understanding of the school’s needs ahead of the RFP. His company is 640 beds into a program to replace 8,000 on University of Kentucky’s campus and will complete another 3,200 this year.
3) Get your name out there
And, Joanie advises higher-ed builders to list their companies and services in the state’s procurement database. That’s public info, so private schools can access it, too. She says to check out a state’s capital plan, also public, to get an idea of what the state schools will be doing next.
