By: Andy Medici
Government contracting attorney Casey McKinnon is quoted in The Business Journals’ – The Playbook article regarding the SBA’s temporary suspension of the location requirement and its impact on 8(a) construction contractors. Casey states the suspension, “will help these small businesses compete for, and win, more contracts… And it will bring a greater diversity of companies to projects that are either more remote or not in areas with a lot of 8(a) contractors.”
The Small Business Administration has temporarily suspended a rule that requires small business contractors in its 8(a) Business Development Program to be physically located near potential project sites to be able to bid for the work.
Typically, contracting businesses in its 8(a) program must establish a physical workplace — with a full-time employee — near the location of a construction project, according to Casey McKinnon, government contractors attorney at law firm Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC. That is often a heavy lift for the businesses, and locks them out of potentially lucrative opportunities.
“There is certainly excitement among the 8(a) contractor community about this change,” McKinnon said. “It will permit contractors whose businesses who have been impacted by Covid to bolster their business and gain new work.”