August 20, 2024 Martha Melendez D’Andrea, Transit Manager City of Glendale Beeline Department of Public Works-Transit Division 1759 Gardena Ave. Glendale, CA 91204 RE: Scope of Services for Street Furniture Program Consulting Via email only Dear Ms. Melendez D’Andrea: Street furniture received little attention for decades as shelters, benches, and kiosks were just elements in the public realm that most of the public overlooked unless they rode public transit. The changes in lifestyles that resulted from the pandemic, the advent of the “15-Minute City” concept, and the deployment of technology in the public realm that improve the quality of life have given street furniture a more significant role in shaping city life in 2024. Gobis & Co. (Gobis) has developed and helped implement street furniture programs that enhance the experience for transit riders as well as the users of active transportation, increase commerce, deploy useful technology, ensure equitable distribution of program elements, and return a ‘fairer’ share of program revenues to our public sector clients. With this proposal, Gobis offers a Scope of Work to develop and implement an enhanced street furniture program for the City of Glendale. In Gobis’ most recent work, it has transformed street furniture programs in Los Angeles and Vancouver, British Columbia into movements that are much more than just providing shelter for transit riders. These two programs are making public spaces vibrant, inclusive, and safe offering transit riders and the public functional furniture that provides shelter, shade, safety, and comfort. In the process, Gobis has changed the revenue model to benefit the municipal partner rather than favoring the out of home advertising partner. We intend to have the same success in Glendale. We thank you for this opportunity, John Gobis Melissa Pattavina Attachment
CITY OF GLENDALE - DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS TRANSIT DIVISION Scope of Services: Street Furniture Program Services UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROJECT The City of Glendale provides bus shelters to the riders of Beeline. There are currently 116 bus stops with shelters in Glendale, 70 of which were installed by the City’s current Out of Home Advertising contractor, Outfront Media. A 2017 survey completed by the City of Glendale showed the potential for another 117 bus shelters. Out of that total, only around 20% of the bus stops have 50 or more daily boardings and 60% have less than 50 daily boardings. Placing shelters where there is less than 50 daily boardings isn’t economical as all street furniture requires regular maintenance. Locations with less than 50 daily boardings may be candidates for other forms of street furniture that could provide some form of shade and can perhaps be supported by advertising. That same report referenced a 2015 UCLA study which found that the numbers of days that air temperatures exceeded 95 would triple by 2050. Adding more street furniture elements including a smaller structure designed to provide shade from the sun would be a possible solution to the large number of locations that do not have sufficient daily boardings to justify a shelter. Smaller shade structures can also be designed for narrow sidewalks and areas with limited space to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) whereas typical transit shelters would not meet ADA requirements if they can even be installed in constrained space. In light of the number of locations with lower daily boardings and to take advantage of changes in lifestyles resulting from the pandemic, Gobis recommends that Glendale consider expanding the elements in its new street furniture program to include smaller shade structures, benches, urban panels, pillars, ePaper screens, and parklets. Glendale is experiencing a surge in retail growth which would benefit an expanded street furniture program in these ways: • Additional Revenue: Location based advertising has been one of the best performing forms of out of home advertising. This is evidenced by Caruso Properties which operates its own network of digital out of home branded as Caruso Digital Networks in Glendale. • Improved Use of the Public Realm: An expanded inventory of street furniture and a more functional inventory of program elements can encourage more residents to walk and use transit while resulting in greater social interaction. For example, placing pillars in downtown Glendale’s retail center and the Montrose Shopping area would provide wayfinding for shoppers and provide an attractive advertising opportunity for local merchants. The primary goal of Glendale’s street furniture program is to enhance the Beeline rider experience by adding elements such as ePaper screens that present real-time information and shade structures to provide protection from the sun and heat at stops not suitable for a full shelter. These enhancements will increase the loyalty of current Beeline riders and lure new riders to the service. From Gobis’ experience in building street furniture programs in Los Angeles and Vancouver we are keenly aware of the ability of street furniture programs to respond to environmental issues, especially the Urban Heat Island problem and equity requirements. We are confident that our work will result in a street furniture program that is visionary and self-sustaining for the City of Glendale. SCOPE OF WORK Gobis proposes a Scope of Work that supports the City of Glendale from the visioning of a Street Furniture Program to the development of the Request for Proposals to the negotiation of the resulting agreement. It has been our experience in negotiating transit advertising, billboard and street furniture agreements for public sector agencies that best written Request for Proposals can still be interpreted to the benefit of the contractor during negotiations. We negotiate agreements that definitively place control of important programs decisions like the number and location of program elements in our clients’ hands. Our strategies also ensure that program revenues get shared fairly with our clients, after all the City of Glendale is giving the contractor valuable access to the public realm. Task 1 - Vision and Goals for the Program We believe that street furniture can improve the quality of life in Glendale. The primary goals of the program are always to provide shelter, shade, and a safe place for Beeline riders, pedestrians, and those using active transportation. Gobis would recommend that the City of Glendale consider a vision for its street furniture program that not only supports the use of Beeline service but supports shared and active mobility, fosters economic activity, and strengthens neighborhoods. In the process, an expanded program will provide greater revenues to enable the program to sustain itself and grow in functionality. Gobis is recommending that the City of Glendale consider the potential of adding other street furniture elements to its program. The core elements of the program would be: ! Shelters ! ePaper real time displays ! Litter and recycling receptacles ! Benches Additional elements for consideration would be: ! Shade structures ! Pillars (at/near retail centers) ! Hydration stations ! Wi-Fi ! Urban Panels (Separate from shelters) ! Public art and features that reflect community and/or architectural history Gobis would also suggest that the City of Glendale determine if lockers for 5G deployment have potential in the city. In Los Angeles, Vancouver and elsewhere, Gobis is advising public sector clients to explore the potential of deploying or maintaining 5G infrastructure needed by telecommunications providers to implement 5G service. There are firms that can conclude market assessments of the potential of using shelters and other street furniture elements for the storage of radio nodes, antennas, and other hardware, free of charge to the City of Glendale. Annual fees for providing such storage range from $1,000 to $3,000 per location annually. In addition, allowing for the storage of these devices on public property can be accompanied by agreements with the telcos to provide preference to municipal communications needs.
The expiration of the current shelter contract provides the City of Glendale with the opportunity to explore these options prior to the development of the Request for Proposals. The program that results from that RFP should be more functional and adaptable to changes in lifestyles, in technology, and in the advertising marketplace. Gobis believes that expanding the current street furniture program beyond shelters would benefit the City of Glendale in multiple ways described throughout this Scope of Work. Task 2 - Develop the Request for Proposals Gobis would develop a Request for Proposals (RFP) based upon the activities in Task 1 which will identify the City’s vision and goals for its street furniture program. The RFP would be organized as follows: ! Introduction/Intent of the Proposal ! Procurement Schedule ! Summary of the Program (vision, goals, transition requirements, ownership, advertising rights & policy) ! Summary of the Existing Shelter Program (current inventory, historic program revenue) ! Scope of Services (transition, maintenance of existing shelters, new program elements, installation) ! Advertising Sales (business & sales plans, ad rates, city’s ad space, public service programs.) ! Required Compliance ! Proposal Requirements ! Proof of Financial Capability ! Price Proposal (minimum annual guarantee and/or revenue share, cost of maintenance and capital) ! Proposal Evaluation and Award ! Term and Conditions ! Contractor Performance ! End of Contract Conditions and responsibilities ! Audits Gobis will work collaboratively with the City of Glendale to ensure that the RFP meets the City’s own procurement requirements. Task 3 - Marketing of the RFP Gobis maintains an extensive list of providers of Out of Home Advertising services worldwide as we are continuously developing and issuing RFPs for cities, airports, regional transportation agencies, economic development agencies, and others. We will provide that list to the City of Glendale to ensure that the Out of Home industry is aware of the Glendale RFP. We will also use our contacts within the out of home advertising industry to raise awareness of the opportunity among providers of street furniture programs (Clear Channel, JC Decaux, Outfront, Lamar, Tranzito-Vector, Insite Media, Interstate Outdoor, etc.). Glendale is a small component of the large Los Angeles Designated Market Area however the economic vitality of Glendale makes the city attractive for location-based, new product launch, movie and online entertainment, and local merchant advertising. All of the major Out of Home organizations previously mentioned have significant operations in the Los Angeles Market, as a result the Glendale inventory would be straightforward to manage. Task 4 - Proposal Evaluation Gobis will assist the City of Glendale evaluating the proposals submitted in response to the RFP by providing comparative and market analyses. In 2023, $8.7 billion was spent on out of home advertising in the United States. Of that number, over $750 million was spent in Los Angeles County alone. Gobis provides the technical knowledge of the working of the out of home industry that unlocks those secrets that the industry attempts to conceal from public sector clients who rightfully want an increasing share of the revenues generated from out of home advertising in the public realm. Our knowledge of how the industry works is informed by our experience in advising cities, airports, economic development agencies, port authorities, toll roads, and transit agencies on the quality and the authenticity of proposal submissions. We stay up to date with not only the financial performance of the industry but with industry best practice in the sales of advertising space, the maintenance of out of home advertising structures and devices, and how technology can be used to diversify the base of advertisers using out of home advertising. Task 5 - Negotiations Support Over the past decade we have assisted multiple public sector agencies in their negotiations resulting in contracts that put our clients in control of their out of home advertising programs and captured a ‘fairer’ share of program revenues. In those negotiations we have attained significant increases in the share of program revenues for our clients. In Boston we increased the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s revenue share to an industry high of 70%. Our negotiating prowess raised the percentage of revenue that the City of Los Angeles receives from its street furniture program from 20% of gross revenues to 60.5%. It is not only the revenue return that is important to our clients, but also holding the contractors ‘feet to the fire’ regarding equitable distribution of program elements, responding to the needs of the cultural requests of neighborhoods in which street furniture is located and, perhaps most importantly, to work collaboratively and transparently with our clients. Often out of home companies have been reluctant to provide the data necessary to evaluate their performance alluding to confidentiality however Gobis has successfully refuted these claims. Our goal in negotiations is to establish a climate of trust between our clients and the selected contractor resulting in a true business partnership that benefits both parties.
Employee J. Gobis M. Pattavina
Fully Burdened Hourly Rate $195 $95
40 40 80 $11,600
100 100 200 $29,000
30 20 50 $7,750
60 60 120 $4,800
50 30 80 $8,000
280 250 530 $61,150
Expenses Description
n/a n/a $0
$0
$61,150
Total Cost
per Task
City of Glendale Street
Furniture Program
LABOR TOTALS
GRAND TOTAL
Gobis & Co. Proposal for
Task 1 Vision and Goals for the Program
Task 2 Develop the Request for Proposals
EXPENSE TOTALS
Total Hours
Task 3 Marketing of the RFP
Task 4 Proposal Evaluation
Task 5 Negotiations Support