The Administration recommends that the Mayor and City Commission of the City of Miami Beach, Florida approve the City Manager’s recommendation pertaining to bids received, pursuant to ITB 2020-042-AY, Grounds Maintenance for right-of-ways, parking facilities, Lincoln Road Mall, lot clearance and coastal areas.

The purpose of the ITB is to establish a contract, by means of sealed bids, with qualified firm(s) to provide grounds maintenance services for right-of-ways, parking facilities, Lincoln Road Mall, lot clearance (as may be needed) and coastal areas throughout the City.

The ITB was issued on October 23, 2019, with bid opening date of April 3, 2020. The Procurement Department issued bid notices to 6,249 companies utilizing www.bidsync.com website. 161 prospective bidders accessed the advertised solicitation. The notices resulted in the receipt of five (5) responses from: Brightview Landscape Services, Inc. (“Brightview”), SFM Services, Inc. (“SFM”), Superior Landscaping & Lawn Services, Inc. (“Superior”), J.Fletcher Industries DBA Trimac Outdoor (“Trimac”), and YRY Homes LLC/ James Hepburn (“YRY”). See Attachment A for a tabulation of bids received.

Upon review of the bid submitted by YRY Homes, LLC, the City finds that the bidder has failed to comply with the ITB requirements. Therefore, the bid submitted by YRY Homes, LLC has been deemed non-responsive and cannot be considered.  Staff has verified that the bids submitted by the remaining four (4) bidders met the requirements of the ITB and can be considered. Brightview, SFM and Superior have existing or prior contacts with the City and have performed well. Trimac has not been previously awarded work at the City, but has provided references that have documented their satisfaction with the firm's quality of work. 

Below is a brief summary of the four (4) bidders as articulated in their bid submittals and staff's experience with each bidder, as applicable. 

Brightview Landscape Services, Inc.

Brightview was established over 70 years ago and is one of the largest landscaping companies in Florida, with expertise in the commercial landscaping services, with over 23,000 employees. In addition to work experience with the City of Miami Beach, Brightview has experience with other agencies such as City of Weston, City of Surfside, and City of Aventura. Brightview has provided the City with landscaping services since 2011 and received satisfactory evaluation performances.

The City of Miami Beach was initially contracted through ITB 2014-275-LR with ValleyCrest Landscape Services, Inc. to provide routine landscape maintenance services in the North Right-of-Way, Lincoln Rd. Mall, and the Parking Lots & Facilities Citywide.  ValleyCrest was eventually acquired by BrightView Landscape Services, Inc., who subsequently provided the routine landscape maintenance for the remainder of the contract.  BrightView has provided dependable landscape maintenance service to the City over the years, and despite a few instances regarding the consistency of service quality, they have overall been good service providers.

SFM Services, Inc.

SFM, established in 1972 is a service company that provides janitorial, landscape, and security guard service needs. SFM is an industry leader in South Florida and across the U.S., and has been for nearly 40 years. With more than 650 employees, who work from Monroe up to Palm Beach County, SFM have also completed projects in Central Florida, Tampa, Mississippi, and Texas. SFM has provided the City with landscaping services for more than 10 years and had received satisfactory evaluation performances from user departments.

SFM Services, Inc. has provided routine landscape maintenance services to the City of Miami Beach through ITB 2014-275-LR for the South Right-of-Way, which also includes the Julia Tuttle and MacArthur Causeways, since 2014.  SFM has consistently provided dependable, thorough, professional, and courteous landscape maintenance service, and has always been available to remedy any observed service deficiencies in a timely manner in order to meet the City’s quality objectives.

Superior Landscaping & Lawn Services, Inc.

Since 1972, Superior has provided landscaping services throughout the State of Florida. Superior’s comprehensive services include architectural landscape design, turf maintenance, landscape irrigation, landscape installation, fertilization, hardscapes, hurricane/storm preparation and recovery, pressure washing and graffiti removal, water features & integrated pest management. Superior manages over 200 employees and has experience with other municipalities such as City of Bonita Springs and City of Hollywood. Superior has been providing the City with landscaping services since 2005.

Superior Landscaping has provided routine landscape maintenance services to the City through ITB 2014-275-LR for the Coastal Areas since 2014.  Superior has been able to provide quality service through this ecologically sensitive corridor, which extends from South Point Dr. north to 79^th Street, and includes the Beachwalk/Boardwalk, Dunes, and abutting street-ends along Collins Ave.  Any feedback from City staff regarding observed service deficiencies were quickly resolved to staff’s satisfaction.

Trimac Outdoor

Trimac is a landscaping service company that performs a range of landscape tasks, such as irrigation, fertilization and pest treatments, and tree care with over 15 years of experience. With a staff of 120 employees, Trimac has received satisfactory evaluation performances from multiple properties such as Delray Bay, American Landmark, and Colony Point. Trimac had not provided landscaping services for the City, however the Administration has reached out to their references and received positive feedback from some of the municipal references which included City of Pinellas Park, City of Mount Dora, and City of Casselberry.

City staff have not had any experience with Trimac Outdoor prior to their bidding for ITB 2020-042-AY.  In order to ascertain the company’s capacity to provide quality, reliable routine landscape maintenance services to the areas of the City for with they provided a bid, staff exercised their right as outlined in the bid documents to visit Trimac’s place of business to observe their facility, equipment, vehicles, and staffing to gauge the functionality of the operation.  Staff also spoke with Trimac’s references and requested a list of their three largest landscape maintenance accounts, and a listing of all equipment and vehicles currently on-hand.  Staff was ultimately satisfied with the information provided and had no immediate concerns over Trimac’s ability to meet the City’s quality objective should they be awarded any sites to maintain.

The cost associated to provide grounds maintenance services consisting primarily of landscape and irrigation maintenance service for the City of Miami Beach is subject to the funds availability approved through the City’s budgeting process. The annual costs are anticipated to be approximately $2.4 million. Award of this ITB will result in approximately $1.2 million savings annually compared to the current costs experienced by the City. 

In order to assure that the City has contractors that can provide services as necessary, it is in the City's best interest to award a primary, secondary, and tertiary vendor for each group. Accordingly, the lowest responsive and responsible bidders, for each respective group, meeting all terms and conditions of the ITB, are indicated in the table below.

Therefore, after reviewing the bids received and the evaluation of staff, I recommend that the Mayor and City Commission of the City of Miami Beach, Florida, approve the award of a contracts, pursuant ITB 2020-042-AY for grounds maintenance for right-of-way, parking facilities, Lincoln Road Mall, lot clearance (as may be needed) and coastal areas, to the lowest responsive, responsible bidders for each respective group as indicated in the table above; and authorize the City Manager and City Clerk to execute the contracts.