Small Firm Exchange

I live in a small city in rural Arizona, I am the only architect within a 100 mile radius! 

The city has posted a 5-year solicitation for an engineer of record, for work, which includes civil engineering, buildings, roads, electrical, structural and all the other engineering trades. In no place is an Architect mentioned.  

This is clearly illegal under Arizona law, as public works projects MUST have an architect if it is a building. By state law, non-architect engineers may 'incidentally' practice architecture on a per-project basis. Also an architect may 'incidentally' practice engineering on a particular project, if they have the training to do so. 

So this has caused me probably tens of thousands of dollars in lost business, as I did not qualify for this 5 year contract, even though the work being done is architectural in nature.  I am looking for help from the AIA or any AIA associated attorney to represent me. Thanks!

How about sending a letter to whomever was named as the contact person for the solicitation, and tell them that something was missing.

"Arizona statutes (or whatever they're called [ insert reference here ] require an AZ-registered architect's involvement in every public works project involving a building.  Please advise when you will be advertising for architect of record services similar to the on-call engineering ones."

Especially if they're required to select on qualifications versus price, many of the "procurement" people don't know that.  They are used to be buying stuff ( desks, printer paper, vehicles ) and not services.  Especially if they only do this every 5 years (to ease their workload).

OR, and maybe less likely to attract attention from big firms elsewhere in the state, contact the engineering firm that they selected, and tell them about the AZ rules, and offer your services to them to cover that part of any projects.  Pump up your proximity, ability to respond, familiarity with local conditions, etc.  Of course, if the selected firm is E/A, you may be out of luck.  In that case, talk directly with the procurement person(s).  

You may be able to obtain a copy of their proposal by way of a freedom of information request.  If they omitted reference to how they intended to cover the architectural aspects, that is another thing to point out.

IF you can turn up any examples of government entities being forced to re-bid projects (and lose time) due to lack of architect involvement, mention those cases to them.  This will work along with their common risk aversion.

Years ago, the firm I was a principal of did a few projects as a consultant to the local County's on-call public works engineering firm, when architectural services were required.  For some of the jobs, they basically handed it over to us to manage the work.  They did structural and civil, came to the meetings and acted as if they were in charge.  We dealt with the County departmental staff to figure out what they needed.

Benjamin:

Have you spoken with your State Licensing Board? Here in Louisiana I have referred such solicitations to our Licensing Board as they are responsible for regulating the practice of Architecture in our state and we have a PAC that advocates on our behalf. The State Licensing Board can communicate with the public entity without risking prejudicing the entity against a particular firm.

It is very common that public entities do not understand the licensing laws and, in particular, do not understand the differences in contract with design professional vs. contractors.