City Chief Financial Officer Ronnie Belton and Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Karen Bowling are recommending Global Spectrum as the preferred candidate to manage seven Jacksonville sports and entertainment venues.
Current facilities manager SMG, the only other competitor for the contract, immediately filed a letter of protest.
Belton and Bowling served as a subcommittee of the City Professional Services Evaluation Committee, which will recommend the new facilities manager.
Global Spectrum and SMG responded to the Request for Proposal for the City’s sports and entertainment facilities, consisting of EverBank Field, Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, the Equestrian Center, the Ritz Theatre and the Osborn Center.
Belton scored the proposals 80-79 in favor of SMG while Bowling scored the proposals 80-71 in favor of Global Spectrum.
The total averages were 79.5 for Global Spectrum and 75.5 for SMG.
Belton and Bowling scored the two companies among 10 categories and based their scores on a 100-point scale. Each of the 10 categories had a different value.
Their biggest difference in opinion fell under the “competence” category worth up to 20 points. Belton scored 17-16 in favor of SMG while Bowling scored it 18-15 in favor of Global Spectrum.
“Cost breakdown,” another 20-point category, also drew a large difference. Belton scored 16-15 in favor of SMG while Bowling scored 15-12 in favor of Global Spectrum.
If their recommendation is approved by the committee, the decision would be sent to Brown for final selection followed by fee and contract negotiations.
SMG filed a formal protest of the decision late Monday.
“Global’s proposal fails to respond to the RFP, and in some instances appears to present inaccurate or incomplete information” in the categories of compliance, operational matters and non-operational matters, according to the 12-page protest filed by Rogers Towers attorney T.R. Hainline on behalf of SMG.
The protest also included more than 150 pages of exhibits.
Regarding compliance, the protest contends Global Spectrum’s response is not responsive to the RFP for a 10-year term of management and outlines alleged flaws in its fixed arrangement fees.
It also contends that Global Spectrum’s financial information does not describe the company’s financial condition and instead describes Comcast Corp., its “ultimate parent company,” and also does not disclose pending antitrust litigation against Comcast.
The protest requests that the committee disqualify Global Spectrum’s response and issue a recommendation that the contract be awarded to SMG as the sole remaining respondent.
It also requests an extension of three business days that the protest was received by the City so that SMG can provide supplemental protest documentation.
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