City of Tempe - Property Management Supplemental

The Portfolio

What the RFP says, and what the public record adds.

RFP 27-043 is a supplemental solicitation. Firms holding contracts under the prior RFP 25-032 keep them and are told not to respond. Tempe is widening the bench because, in its words, service volume has increased. Four service lines are scored separately: Property Management (the stated priority), Leasing, Sale and Purchase, and Additional Services such as broker opinions of value and rent comps. You can bid one line or all four.

The RFP gives you no property list, no unit count, no square footage, no revenue figure, and no contract value. Management fees are quoted as a percentage of gross revenue collected, against a revenue base you cannot see.

The public record fills part of that gap. Tempe bought the Tempe National Bank building at 526 S. Mill Ave in January 2026 and closed on the Tempe Hardware building at 520 S. Mill Ave in June, using voter-approved 2024 bond authority. Council held hearings on lease ordinances for both on August 31. The RFP issued three days later. The bank building is roughly 10,000 SF, vacant since the Darkstar Theater left, and can hold up to four tenants. The City has said it wants restaurant, retail, and entertainment uses. Both buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places.

The scoring criteria read like a description of those two buildings: downtown, retail tenants, office and retail mix, public spaces with high traffic and vandalism, local emergency response, homelessness. Treat that as a strong inference, not a fact. The RFP names no property.

Complexity Flags

The three things most likely to cost you this bid or its margin.

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A percentage of nothing

Every management fee is a percentage of gross revenue collected, and the City discloses no revenue, no sites, and no volume commitment. Price line 2 asks for a percentage fee on a vacant single-tenant building, where collected revenue is close to zero. Ask before September 17 whether that line can be a flat monthly minimum. As written, it cannot be priced rationally.

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Two quiet disqualifiers

Your antidiscrimination policy has to mirror Tempe Ordinance 02016.25 across all eleven protected classes, including familial status, gender identity, and veteran status. Most firm EEO policies miss at least one. The RFP also requires your own proposed management contract in the submission. Leave it out and it will not be considered.

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Pricing against a schedule you cannot see

The 25-032 fee schedule is not public, and the City will use it as its internal benchmark. File a public records request with the City Clerk now. On top of that, twelve price lines in mixed units (seven percentages, five flat fees) have no stated method for rolling up into the single price the cost formula needs.

Bottom Line

Our read on whether this is worth your time.

Conditional Bid

Worth bidding if you are a Phoenix-metro manager with an Arizona broker license and live downtown mixed-use retail experience. 55 of the 100 base points on Property Management sit in urban operating experience and the maintenance program. Cost is 30. There is no incumbent bidding against you, Tempe routinely splits awards across two to five firms, and property-services bids here draw thin fields.

The condition: get answers on the portfolio, the pricing roll-up, and the vacant-building fee before the September 17 question deadline. Do not price this one blind.

Portfolio Map

The RFP lists no sites. These are the two City-owned buildings the public record ties to this solicitation.

City-owned building (inferred) Downtown Tempe Refresh corridor

Mill Avenue Historic Core

2 buildings · 500 block of S. Mill Ave · acquired 2026

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Tempe National Bank Building

526 S. Mill Ave · Built 1912, Egyptian Revival · ~10,000 SF · Vacant, up to 4 tenants

City-owned National Register 1984 Vacant

Tempe Hardware Building

520 S. Mill Ave · Built 1898, three-story unreinforced brick · ~14,000 SF building, ~2,000 SF available · 1 tenant in place

City-owned National Register 1980 Occupied, partial

Downtown Tempe Refresh

Mill Ave, University Dr to Rio Salado Pkwy · streetscape rebuild

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Two-year reconstruction of the Mill Avenue streetscape running past both buildings: new sidewalks, paving, utilities, and trees. Merchants have raised construction-impact concerns. Expect early-term leasing and maintenance work to run alongside it.

Active construction

Pins are placed at street address. The City will assign properties after award; confirm the actual list through the Bonfire Q&A.

Key Dates

All times are local Arizona time. Arizona does not observe daylight saving.

Date	Milestone	Status
Nov 2024	Voters approve Question 2 bond authority for parks, infrastructure, and historic preservation	Past
Jan 8, 2026	Council votes 7-0 to negotiate purchase of 520 and 526 S. Mill Ave	Past
Jan 2026	City closes on the Tempe National Bank building	Past
Jun 2026	City closes on the Tempe Hardware building	Past
Aug 31, 2026	Council public hearings on lease ordinances for both buildings	Past
Sep 3, 2026	RFP 27-043 issued on Bonfire	Past
Sep 10, 2026	Final Council hearing on the lease ordinances	Past
Sep 17, 2026 5:00 PM	Questions due, Bonfire Q&A only. Last chance to ask about the portfolio and pricing method.	Deadline
Sep 24, 2026 3:00 PM	Proposals due on Bonfire. Public opening: firm names read, prices not read. Protests on solicitation terms must be filed before this time.	Deadline
Sep 24, 2026	Preliminary bid tabulation posted to Bonfire after opening	Upcoming
~Dec 23, 2026	90-day offer validity expires	Upcoming
Not stated	Council award. Recommendation posts to the Clerk agenda site up to five days before. Term starts on the award date.	Upcoming
Award + 10 bus. days	Protest window on the award closes	Upcoming
Award + 1 yr	Initial term ends. Up to four one-year renewals, plus a 90-day unilateral City extension.	Upcoming

Watch the insurance clock. No award notice issues until the City has every insurance document, and you get ten calendar days from request. The required endorsements (CG 20 10 and CG 20 37 04/13, CA 20 48, waiver of subrogation on all lines) take a broker days to issue. Call yours before you submit.

Scoring Strategy

Each service line is scored on its own 100-point scale.

A City staff committee rates each criterion 0 to 10 and multiplies by the weight, so a perfect Property Management score is 1,000 points. Firms in the competitive range may be interviewed for another 40 weight points, which makes the interview the largest single element on a 140-point scale. Cost may be scored as lowest price divided by your price.

There are no preference points of any kind: no local, small, minority, woman, or veteran preference. Tempe's 1.8% sales tax is zeroed out for evaluation, so a Tempe address buys you nothing on price.

Property Management (priority)	Points
Cost	30
Evidence of experience, past three years Downtown or urbanized environments Retail tenants Multi-use office and retail properties Public spaces, high traffic, high vandalism Service calls and emergencies with local resources Homeless issues	35
Thoroughness of the preventive maintenance program	20
References (minimum three)	5
Overall response: quality, completeness, acceptance of City terms	10
Base total	100
Interviews (competitive range only)	+40

Other lines	Leasing	Sale & Purchase	Additional
Cost	30	30	30
Relevant experience	30	30	35
Understanding and approach outline	5	5	–
Marketing or leasing plan	20	20	–
Quality of sample reports	–	–	20
References	5	5	5
Overall response	10	10	10
Base total	100	100	100

Where the points are. Experience and the maintenance program carry 55 of 100 on Property Management. Submit the maintenance program as an actual document, not a paragraph. And answer the scoring language: the questionnaire says "vagrancy," the scorecard says "homeless issues." Write to the scorecard and name how your site staff would use Tempe's own homeless-response channels.

Who Should Bid

Gates first, then fit.

Eligibility gates

Bonfire registration under the correct solicitation. An Arizona real estate broker license for the Leasing and Sale lines (the RFP never names it, but you cannot do that work without it). CGL at $1M/$2M, auto at $1M, workers' comp, $1M professional liability, plus all-risk property and valuable papers coverage, which is unusual for a PM contract. A signed Vendor's Offer, a compliant antidiscrimination policy, and your proposed contract in the package.

Ideal bidder

A Phoenix-metro brokerage with in-house property management and commercial accounting, currently running downtown mixed-use retail: CAM reconciliations, after-hours response, vandalism protocols, and a working relationship with municipal outreach. Able to run a separate bank account per property and file City and State sales tax returns on the City's behalf. Bid Property Management and Leasing, and bid them tight. A focused two-line proposal will outscore a thin four-line sweep.

Pass if

You manage scattered-site residential with no commercial accounting, you lack an Arizona broker license and planned to lead with leasing, or your economics need a guaranteed portfolio size. The City can manage, lease, buy, and sell its own property with staff at any time, and the contract is non-exclusive.

Get the Full Analysis

The bid decision document and the research behind it, free.

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Executive Summary

21 pages. Bid recommendation, compliance and cost drivers, contract terms, full scoring breakdown, and a 22-item client checklist.

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Intelligence Brief

10 pages. The Mill Avenue acquisition timeline, Tempe award patterns and bidder counts, and what it means for your bid.

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