Exactly. Anything issued for actual work will be a pdf. The actual cad files will be reserved for the engineers and designers. Any markups will get made on pdf/paper and returned to the designer, to update the record prints (cad).
So not only is a pdf not surprising, it's expected.
The bigger question here is, do we have a full project, or do we have a phase 1 that is the bare minimum to start work.