DHS Seeks Proposals for Border-Wall Prototypes

In a step toward meeting one of President Trump’s most prominent campaign pledges, the Dept. of Homeland Security is seeking firms to provide prototypes of a U.S.-Mexico border barrier.

In a presolicitation notice posted on Feb. 24 on the website FedBizOpps.gov (fbo.gov), DHS’s Customs and Border Protection agency announced that, by about March 6, it plans to issue a solicitation for design and construction of “several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico.”

In the notice, Customs and Border Protection said it plans to conduct a two-phase procurement. In the first phase, each firm must submit by March 10 its prototype’s “concept paper.” Then, by March 20, the list of proposals will be narrowed down, the agency said.

For firms that make it to the second phase of the procurement, Customs and Border Protection plans to issue a request by March 24 for full proposals, “which will include price,” the notice said. It adds, “Multiple awards are contemplated by mid-April for this effort.” The notice doesn’t specify the wall’s length or estimate its cost.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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