The Scoring Matrix, Taken Apart

The short version

200 EVB won the price score outright. It finished last.

On the ACA’s own matrix, 200 East Van Buren scored a perfect 10 out of 10 on price. It was the only bidder to do so. The Collier Center scored 7.

On square-footage fit, 200 EVB scored a perfect 10 as well, tied with every other bidder. So on the two things a tenant actually shops on, it was best or tied-best. It then lost by 35 points.

60200 EVB — final score

95Collier Center — final score

35of 100 points scored on criteria found nowhere in the RFP

0evaluation criteria disclosed in the RFP itself

The document

Every line of the matrix

Reproduced from “Project Home Base – Office Lease Comparison Sheet updated 6.9.2026.” Every column below adds to the total the ACA printed on its own document, so none of the scoring is our arithmetic. The final column is ours: whether the RFP the ACA sent to bidders on December 1, 2025 ever asked about that subject.

ACA office lease scoring matrix — all 15 criteria, all four buildings
Criterion	Max	200 EVB	Collier Center	One North Central	Renaissance Square	Asked for in the RFP?
SF Fit Potential	10	10	10	10	10	Stated as a requirement — never as a scored criterion
Negotiated $/SF	10	10	7	8	6	Rate requested — but no weight disclosed
Conference Center Fit	8	2	8	8	7	Spec only — a build-out line item, not a criterion
Rent Abatement	7	0	7	6	7	Told to fold into the rate
Employee Parking Abatement	7	6	6	5	7	Parking raised — abatement of parking cost never asked
Event Parking Validations	7	3	7	6	7	Was a mandatory requirement — converted to a preference
Interim Space on Property	7	0	7	7	7	Nowhere in the RFP
Building ownership strength	6	3	6	4	6	Nowhere in the RFP
Traffic Considerations	6	4	6	4	4	Nowhere in the RFP
Demonstration View from Suite	6	4	6	5	5	Nowhere in the RFP
Total Inducements Package	6	3	5	4	6	Told to fold into the rate
Area Amenities	5	4	5	5	5	Nowhere in the RFP
Property Amenities	5	4	5	4	5	Partly — “please provide building services, amenities”
Visitor Parking Ease	5	3	5	4	5	Partly — parking was requested, “ease” was not
Space Consideration for Partners	5	4	5	5	5	Nowhere in the RFP — “partners” is never defined
Total	100	60	95	85	92

Source: Arizona Commerce Authority, “Project Home Base – Office Lease Comparison Sheet updated 6.9.2026.” Scores transcribed exactly as printed. Download the original document →

Finding one

The RFP disclosed no evaluation criteria at all

The December 1, 2025 RFP is a business-points term sheet. Participants, premises, term, economics, tenant improvements, use, condition of premises, sublease and assignment, parking, signage, HVAC, building services, landlord default, holdover. Bidders were asked to redline the form and send it back.

What the RFP does not contain, anywhere: a list of evaluation criteria. Point values. Weights. A scoring methodology. A description of who would evaluate. Any statement at all about how the winner would be chosen.

The ACA’s own policy required two things it left out

The ACA’s Procurement and Grants Policy — adopted under A.R.S. § 41-2501 and filed as Exhibit A to the verified complaint — requires formal procurements over $50,000 to be awarded “based on criteria established by ACA,” and requires the RFP to “contain language that the award of the contract is based on the evaluation that produces the ‘best value’ for ACA.”

The RFP contains neither. Every one of the fifteen weighted criteria in the matrix is therefore undisclosed relative to what bidders actually saw.

This is not a technicality. It is the whole ballgame. A bidder who knows “Rent Abatement” is worth seven points structures its offer to win those seven points. A bidder told instead to fold abatement into the rate does the opposite — and then gets a zero for it.

Finding two

35 of the 100 points score things the RFP never mentioned

Six criteria in the matrix have no counterpart anywhere in the RFP. Not a heading, not a sentence, not a request for information. Together they carry more than a third of the available score.

Criteria with no corresponding request in the RFP
Criterion	Points	200 EVB	Collier	Points handed to Collier
Interim Space on Property	7	0	7	+7
Building ownership strength	6	3	6	+3
Traffic Considerations	6	4	6	+2
Demonstration View from Suite	6	4	6	+2
Area Amenities	5	4	5	+1
Space Consideration for Partners	5	4	5	+1
Total	35	19	35	+16

Sixteen of the thirty-five points separating 200 EVB from the Collier Center came from criteria no bidder could have known existed. Taken one at a time, they get worse.

“Interim Space on Property” — 7 points, and we were never asked

The single largest undisclosed criterion. The RFP never asks for swing space, temporary space, or interim occupancy. It asks for a commencement date of approximately March 1, 2026 and early access to install phones and cabling. That is the whole of it.

200 East Van Buren had well over 100,000 square feet sitting available at the time. Interim space would have been an easy yes.

The ACA had many chances to ask. It could have put the requirement in the RFP. It could have raised it during seven months of negotiation. It could have included it in the four follow-up demands it sent in December, all of which Pivot met inside a day. It did none of those things.

Three of the four buildings scored a perfect 7. 200 EVB scored 0, on a question it was never asked. That one line is a fifth of the entire margin of defeat.

“Building ownership strength” — 6 points, and no financials were ever requested

Here is the RFP’s complete inquiry into who the landlord is: “Please provide the Landlord name and contact information.”

That is the entire inquiry. No bidder was asked for a balance sheet, a financial statement, a lender reference, a credit rating, proof of reserves or an ownership disclosure. No bidder submitted financials, because none were requested. There is no record on which a financial-strength judgment could honestly have been made.

Six points were awarded on it anyway. 200 EVB, owned by Phoenix residents who reinvest in the building, scored 3. The Collier Center, owned by a subsidiary of the Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corporation, scored 6.

“Hard to compete with the value add – and brand – of Sumitomo.” ACA Board member Jack Selby, text message, June 3, 2026 — filed as a sworn exhibit

A board member described the deciding factor as the counterparty’s brand. Absent any financial submission, “ownership strength” cannot have measured anything else. Brand is not in the RFP, it is not in the ACA’s procurement policy, and it is not a lawful basis for spending public money.

“Traffic Considerations” and “Demonstration View from Suite” — 12 points

Twelve points — more than the entire price criterion — for commute convenience and window views. Neither word appears in the RFP.

The traffic score is the more remarkable of the two. The two buildings are three blocks apart on the same street — 0.3 miles, a six-minute walk. We ran the drive times to six Valley destinations and the combined difference is one minute. And on the one-way grid, the building that is genuinely harder to get in and out of is the one the ACA chose. The full traffic analysis →

“Space Consideration for Partners” — 5 points, and nobody will say what it means

We genuinely do not know what this criterion means. Neither does any other bidder.

The RFP never uses the word “partners.” It never names a partner. It never describes a partner space requirement. It never says how much partner space might be needed. Bidders were scored on their ability to house organisations whose existence was never disclosed to them.

What we can say is what was on offer: Class A space at the lowest rate in the competition, the only 10 out of 10 the ACA awarded on price, in a recently renovated tower with well over 100,000 square feet available. Any partner the ACA cared to name could have been housed there, cheaply, had anyone asked.

And there is a constitutional problem with the criterion itself

Set aside that it was undisclosed. A public agency paying extra so that unnamed private parties can be housed is a Gift Clause question in its own right.

Article IX, Section 7 of the Arizona Constitution bars the State from making a donation or subsidy to any individual, association or corporation. Arizona courts count only direct, bargained-for consideration flowing to the public. Schires v. Carlat, 250 Ariz. 371 (2021).

If the State pays a premium so a third party gets space, the benefit runs to that third party. The State receives nothing enforceable in return. That is a Gift Clause problem, and it is one more reason this has no business on a public procurement scorecard — disclosed or not. More on the Gift Clause →

Finding three

The RFP told bidders to fold concessions into the rate. The matrix then scored the folded-in concessions as missing.

This is the mechanism that produced the 35-point rout, and it is worth reading twice.

What the RFP instructed

“Please quote your most competitive Base Rental Rate on a Full Service (FS) Rental Rate basis… Your proposed rate should take into consideration and include all of the business terms and conditions outlined herein. These include the proposed lease term, the required Tenant Improvement Allowance, rent abatement and any other inducements offered.”

Pivot did exactly that. It quoted a single full-service rate with the turn-key build-out at the landlord’s cost, operating expenses inside the rent, and every inducement priced in. That is precisely why 200 EVB scored a perfect 10 out of 10 on price — the concessions were already in the number.

Then the matrix scored those same concessions a second time, as separate line items:

Concession scoring versus price scoring
Line item	Points	200 EVB	Collier
Rent Abatement	7	0	7
Employee Parking Abatement	7	6	6
Event Parking Validations	7	3	7
Total Inducements Package	6	3	5
Concessions, scored separately	27	12	25
Actual price	10	10	7

Twenty-seven points for how concessions are packaged. Ten points for what the space actually costs. A bidder who followed the RFP’s instruction — put it all in the rate — was penalised nearly three times as heavily as it was rewarded.

200 EVB scored zero out of seven on Rent Abatement for the sin of having already given the money back through a lower rent. That is double jeopardy dressed up as scoring.

And a requirement quietly became a preference

On event parking the RFP was not asking a question. It was stating a term: “Landlord understand[s] Tenant hosts events for up to two hundred (200) guests on a regular basis and shall make available any additional parking spaces at no additional cost to Tenant.”

On December 29, 2025 the ACA asked Pivot to convert its six valet-serviced events into validation hours. On December 30 — one day later — Pivot confirmed 1,800 full-day parking validations in writing, along with staff parking in the 2nd Street garage and fifteen reserved executive spaces.

The matrix gave 200 EVB 3 out of 7.

Finding four

The things the RFP actually cared about are worth nothing

The misalignment runs in both directions. While 35 points ride on subjects the RFP never raised, the RFP’s own stated priorities carry no weight at all.

Requested in the RFP — scored at zero
What the RFP asked for	Weight in the matrix
Tenant Improvement Allowance and turn-key build-out The RFP’s longest and most detailed section: a full space program of eighteen numbered items — 4 executive offices, 24 standard offices, 80 workstations, 20 hoteling seats, 5 phone booths, IT room, privacy room, storage, three 10-person meeting rooms, an 18-person room, five 6–8 person rooms, four huddle rooms, and conference rooms configurable to roughly 200 occupancy.	No dedicated criterion Only “Conference Center Fit” (8 pts) touches any part of it
Operating Expenses Requested in detail, with controllable expenses capped at 3% cumulative — a direct, quantifiable taxpayer protection.	0 points
Signage “Maximum building facia and monument signage is important to Tenant” — the RFP says so in those words.	0 points
Base Rental Increases The escalator that determines what years two through five actually cost.	0 points
Renewal Options Two additional three-year terms or one six-year term, at the tenant’s option.	0 points
Commencement date and early occupancy	0 points
After-hours HVAC availability and cost	0 points
Landlord default remedies Rent abatement after two days without services; the right to cancel after thirty.	0 points
Holdover rights	0 points
Sublease and assignment rights	0 points
Condition of the premises MEP systems, asbestos survey and removal, sprinklers and ADA upgrades — all at the landlord’s cost.	0 points

Read that list again. The ACA wrote a detailed specification for how it wanted to work — and then judged the competition on views, traffic, interim space and the landlord’s brand.

Two out of eight on the conference centre

On January 30, 2026, at the ACA’s request, Pivot staged an on-site Conference Set-Up Review at 200 East Van Buren — more than 200 chairs physically set out to demonstrate the space held the crowd the ACA said it hosts. ACA staff attended.

Four months later the matrix scored 200 EVB 2 out of 8 on “Conference Center Fit.” The ACA has never explained what it saw in that room that produced a 25% score.

The other way to read it

Every requirement scored at zero is one 200 EVB was winning

Look again at the list of RFP requirements that carry no weight in the matrix. That list is not random. It is, almost item for item, the part of the deal where the local building was ahead.

What the RFP asked for, what Pivot offered, what the matrix counted
The RFP asked for	Pivot’s proposal	Weight
Signage “Maximum building facia and monument signage is important to Tenant”	Building fascia signage, exclusive to the tenant, with no monthly signage fee for the term or any extension	0
Operating expenses Controllable expenses capped at 3% cumulative	No additional operating expense at all — folded into the base rent, so the quoted rate is the rate	0
Base rental increases	The lowest escalation in the competition	0
Holdover rights	Granted exactly as the RFP drafted them	0
Sublease and assignment	Granted exactly as the RFP drafted them, including no landlord share of any sublease income	0
Turn-key build-out and condition of premises	Delivered at the landlord’s cost, with MEP, ADA and asbestos work at the landlord’s expense and nothing billed back	0
Class A space	A recently renovated Class A tower with well over 100,000 square feet available	0

Seven requirements the ACA wrote into its own solicitation. Seven zeros. Meanwhile 35 points went to interim space, ownership brand, traffic, views, area amenities and “partners” — none of which the RFP mentions.

Score the RFP’s own priorities and the result moves the other way

200 EVB already held the only perfect price score in the competition and a perfect score on square-footage fit. Add weight to the things the ACA said it wanted — signage, capped operating expenses, the lowest escalator, holdover and sublease protections, a turn-key build-out at the landlord’s cost, Class A space — and the gap does not narrow. It reverses.

That is the whole problem with an undisclosed scorecard. The criteria that were counted were the ones the winner happened to be good at. The criteria that were written down in advance, and that the losing bidder had actually satisfied, were worth nothing.

Finding five

When was this document actually created?

The file is titled “Project Home Base – Office Lease Comparison Sheet updated 6.9.2026.” Set that date against the record.

December 15, 2025 — proposals submitted.
Mid-April 2026 — the ACA stops communicating with Pivot. No score, no debrief, no rejection notice.
June 5, 2026 — Pivot serves a written demand for the procurement records and demands preservation of documents.
June 9, 2026 — four days later — the date on the only scoring document that has ever surfaced.
June 19, 2026 — the ACA denies the protest, asserts a “material and substantive evaluation,” faults Pivot for having no evidence — and attaches nothing. Not even this matrix, dated ten days earlier.

A scorecard dated roughly six months after the proposals came in, four days after a demand for records, and withheld from the letter denying that demand, raises an obvious question that only the ACA can answer: was this matrix prepared in the ordinary course of the evaluation, or was it built afterwards to justify a decision already made?

We do not know. Neither does anyone else outside the ACA. That is precisely the problem. Under its own policy the ACA must keep records sufficient to document the significant history of a procurement — including vendor selection, procurement decisions, and the determination that the winner represents fair and reasonable value. If a contemporaneous evaluation exists, producing it ends this argument in an afternoon.

The bottom line

The scoring matrix and the RFP are misaligned in both directions. Roughly a third of the scoring weight rests on criteria never disclosed to bidders, while the RFP’s own stated priorities — turn-key build-out, signage, operating expense caps, renewal flexibility, landlord default protections — carry no weight at all. Concession packaging outweighs actual price by 27 points to 10, and the bidder who followed the RFP’s pricing instruction was zeroed out for it.

Add a document that post-dates the proposals by six months and a demand for records by four days, and the ACA’s own requirement that awards be made on established, best-value criteria stated in the RFP, and the matrix does not read like the evaluation instrument the procurement contemplated. It reads like a decision-justification document.

What would settle this

Release the full procurement file. The contemporaneous evaluation. The names of the evaluators and the dates they scored. The board agenda, minutes and vote approving a multi-million-dollar lease. The best-value determination. These are public records documenting the spending of public money, and Arizona law already requires the ACA to keep them.

Next: the traffic score → Read the source documents