Negotiated Concessions.
12 RCNY § 1-14
in effect§ 1-14 Negotiated Concessions.
(a) Policy. Agencies may award negotiated concessions under the circumstances and subject to the conditions set forth in this section.
(b) Procedures.
(1) Preliminary Discussions. An agency may engage in preliminary discussions with a potential concessionaire to explore the feasibility of a proposed concession. Discussions are not negotiations for the selection of a concessionaire.
(2) The concession manager shall justify the award of a negotiated concession by making a determination that it is not practicable and/or advantageous to award a concession by competitive sealed bidding or competitive sealed proposals due to the existence of a time-sensitive situation where a concession must be awarded quickly because:
(i) an agency has an opportunity to obtain significant revenues that would be lost or substantially diminished should the agency be required to solicit the concession by competitive sealed bids or competitive sealed proposals, provided, however, that revenue shall not be considered "substantially diminished" where the diminishment is only to the present value of the revenue because of the additional time needed to solicit competitive sealed bids or competitive sealed proposals;
(ii) or an existing concessionaire has been terminated, has defaulted, has withdrawn from, or has repudiated a concession agreement, or has become otherwise unavailable;
(iii) or an agency has decided, for unanticipated reasons, not to renew an existing concession in the best interest of the City and the agency requires a substitute or successor concessionaire.
(3) The CCPO shall approve the use of the negotiated concession method for a particular concession or for a particular type of concession prior to the agency's conduct of negotiations with potential concessionaires. The CCPO shall state the reasons that permitting the use of such method serves the best interests of the City and shall provide a copy of this determination and of the request by the concession manager to the members of the Committee within 5 days of its issuance.
(4) The agency shall negotiate with all qualified potential concessionaires that have expressed interest unless the concession manager determines for a particular concession or for a particular type of concession that it is in the City's best interest to negotiate with fewer potential concessionaires, and the CCPO approves such determination.
(5) The concession manager shall maintain a written record of the conduct of negotiations and the basis for every determination to continue or suspend negotiations with each potential concessionaire.
(6) The concession manager shall make a determination that award of the concession is in the best interest of the City and the basis thereof.
(c) Public Notice of Intent to Enter into Negotiations.
(1) Frequency. Notice of intent to enter into negotiations shall be published in the City Record, shall be posted on the City's website in a location that is accessible by the public simultaneously with its publication, and a copy shall be provided to the members of the Committee within 5 days of its publication. The last date of publications of such notice shall appear no fewer than 10 days before negotiations are expected to begin.
(2) Content. Such notice of intent shall include:
(i) Agency name;
(ii) Brief description of the proposed concession, its size and its location;
(iii) Projected concession revenue, if any;
(iv) Summary of the basis of the determination to award the concession as a negotiated concession;
(v) Projected concession term start and expiration dates;
(vi) Instructions and information to potential concessionaires concerning how they may express interest in the proposed concession, and how they may obtain additional information concerning the proposed concession, including but not limited to, its prior use and/or other possible usage of the premises, any fixtures or equipment on the premises and its surrounding area, appropriate materials such as maps, plans or photographs; and any terms and conditions upon its award, including warranty and bonding or other security requirements, amount of proposed capital investment and a description of any legal restrictions on the use of the location;
(vii) The evaluation criteria that will be applied to the evaluation of all proposals;
(viii) A notice that the concession award is subject to applicable provisions of federal, state, and local laws and executive orders requiring affirmative action and equal employment opportunity;
(ix) Where applicable, a notice that concession award is subject to completion of a PASSPort questionnaires and review of that information by the Department of Investigation;
(x) The name, address, and telephone number of a contact person to whom questions and correspondence relating to the potential concession award can be addressed; and
(xi) The following statement:
The New York City Comptroller is charged with the audit of concession agreements in New York City. Any person or entity who believes that there has been unfairness, favoritism or impropriety in the proposal process should inform the Comptroller, Office of Contract Administration, 1 Centre Street, New York, New York 10007, telephone number (212) 669-2323.
(3) Major concession. Prior to publishing a notice of intent to enter into negotiations, the agency shall make a written determination as to whether a concession is a major and/or significant concession. Such determination shall be approved in writing by the agency head and shall be included in the concession file. If a concession is determined to be a major concession it shall be subject to review and approval pursuant to Sections 197-c and 197-d of the Charter following the agency selection of the successful concessionaire. If a concession is not determined to be a major concession an agency may proceed with negotiations pursuant to paragraph (1) of this subdivision. Agency shall provide written notification of its determination wether the concession is a major and/or significant concession to each affected community board and Borough President at the time that notice of intent to enter into negotiations is published, and shall provide a copy of such notification to the members of the Committee within 5 days of notification of the community board(s) and Borough President. The written notification shall include a summary of the terms and conditions of the proposed concession.
(d) Recommendation of award.
(1) Once the agency has concluded negotiations and has selected a prospective concessionaire, the concession manager shall proceed to determine responsibility of such prospective concessionaire, in accordance with the procedures set forth in 12 RCNY § 1-07. The concession manager shall document the negotiations in a report, which shall include whether potential concessionaires responded to the notice of intent to enter into negotiations, the number of potential concessionaires the agency negotiated with, and the basis for the selection, including all relevant materials submitted by the potential concessionaires. The concession manager shall file the report in the concession file folder.
(2) The concession manager shall require the prospective concessionaire to complete PASSPort questionnaires, as applicable.
(3) The Department of Investigation shall review the names on the questionnaires to ascertain whether the business or its affiliated individuals are or have been the subject of an investigation by the Department, in accordance with 12 RCNY § 1-07(e)(iii).
(e) Award and processing. Once the agency has identified a proposed concessionaire pursuant to the procedures set forth in this Section, the agency may proceed to award the concession, provided, however, that the agency shall submit the concession agreement it proposes to enter into with respect to any negotiated concession for prior approval by the Committee, together with the completed PASSPort questionnaires when the concession has a value that when aggregated with the value of all other City concessions, franchises and contracts held by the same concessionaire is valued at $100,000 or more. Significant concession agreements shall be subject to the public hearing requirements set forth in 12 RCNY § 1-13(q). Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Committee need not review awards of negotiated concessions that are not subject to renewal and have a term of less than 30 days.
(f) Certain DCAS concessions. Notwithstanding the provisions of subdivision (b) of this Section, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services ("DCAS") may award certain concessions, as set forth below, pursuant to this Section, upon compliance with subdivisions (c), (d), and (e) of this Section. A concession subject to this subdivision (f) is a concession to be awarded by DCAS to an owner of property that is adjacent to the concession property, or to a business located on such adjacent property, where DCAS has made a determination that it is not in the best interest of the City to award the concession pursuant to a competitive process because of the layout or some other characteristic of the property, or because of some unique service that can be performed only by the proposed concessionaire.
(g) Accessibility.
(1) Agencies must provide prospective concessionaires with an opportunity to request and receive reasonable accommodations on the basis of disability to participate in the concession solicitation process described by these rules.
(Amended City Record 10/29/2025, eff. 11/28/2025)
Source: City of New York, Charter, Administrative Code and Rules (American Legal Publishing XML export, codelibrary.amlegal.com)URL: https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCrules/0-0-0-154056Fetched: 10/24/2026