City Council Agenda Report
TO: Mayor McCord and Members of the City Council
FROM: Ken Irwin, City Manager
BY: Ken Irwin, City Manager
MEETING DATE: January 18, 2022
ITEM NO: 7.2
SUBJECT: Approve the proposal from RRM Design Group to prepare the Downtown Master Plan and authorize staff to enter into a negotiated Consultant Agreement on a time and materials basis not to exceed cost/budget of $330,000.00 including a 10% contingency to cover selected value-added tasks or unforeseen project expenses as requested by the City.
RECOMMENDATION
Approve the proposal from RRM Design Group to prepare the Downtown Master Plan and authorize staff to enter into a negotiated Consultant Agreement on a time and materials basis not to exceed cost/budget of $330,000.00 including a 10% contingency to cover selected valueadded tasks or unforeseen project expenses as requested by the City.
BACKGROUND
As the City Council may recall on or about November of 2016 the City of Patterson adopted the 2017 Strategic Plan (Plan). The purpose of said Plan was to help the City set a course of action for a specific time period and establish goals for the community and government and determine how to effectively achieve those goals over time. One such goal or priority was the revitalization of the downtown core. Subsequently, in conjunction with the implementation of the Strategic Plan, it was further determined that the development of a Downtown Master Plan would result in a guiding document to establish a clear path to achieve a successfully revitalized downtown. The Plan will be implementation focused, grounded by economic and market data, and will provide guidelines and policies to shape future land use, beautification, public and private signage, plaza and pedestrian amenities, and streetscape improvements. To that end on September 17, 2021, the City of Patterson disseminated a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the creation of a Downtown Master Plan to be developed through the Specific Plan of Land Use mechanism.
ANALYSIS
As indicated a Request for Proposals (RFP) was prepared and disseminated to six (6) qualified firms. Out of the six (6) firms the City received only two (2) proposals. However, the two (2) proposals the City did receive were extremely well done and thought out and while we (the City) did not have a lot of proposals to select from the quality of the proposals we did receive were excellent. Additionally, it should be noted that the creation of a Downtown Master Plan requires a multidisciplinary approach and as such each of the consultants had to pull a team of subconsultants together to achieve the Mater Plan. In the process of doing so several of the firms that were originally solicited to join other firms towards trying to establish the best and most competitive team as it were rather than submit an individual proposal of their own. So, in this regard there were more than just the two (2) consulting firms that participated in the process.
The two (2) proposals with corresponding scopes of work and estimated fees were submitted by the following firms:
Sargent Town Planning
RRM Design Group
A Selection Committee was formed consisting of City Staff and a Qualified Based Selection (QBS) method was provided to the Selection Committee to assist them in this endeavor.
Additionally, prior to the Selection Committee members formally meeting to discuss and evaluate said proposals the proposals were first evaluated and discussed by the Downtown Revitalization Committee members on November 22, 2021. After a very robust discuss the Revitalization Committee unanimously recommended RRM Design Group to the Selection Committee. On November 30, 2021, the Selection Committee formally met to discuss the proposals at which time they were made aware of the Revitalization Committee’s recommendation along with reasons for their decision. After a very lengthy and robust discussion and evaluation by the Selection Committee there was somewhat of an impasse given that both Consultant Teams were very qualified and very competitive. It was, therefore, the Selection Committee’s determined that one way of perhaps assisting with the decision-making process would be to interview the Two (2) Consultant Teams. The interviews were scheduled and on December 8, 2021, the Selection Committee along with one representative from the Revitalization Committee conducted the interviews via ZOOM. The Selection Committee then circled back immediately following the interviews to ascertain if one of the Consultant Teams distinguished themselves over the other. Based on the interviews it was unanimously concluded that the RRM Design Group team would be the best fit to conduct the lengthy and complicated tasks of creating a Downtown Master Plan. It should be noted that based on the proposal evaluations and the interview process it became clear that the RFP did not adequately address our expectations relative to the interface condition between Hwy 33 and the downtown core. As such, following the Selection Committee’s recommendation Staff reached out to RRM Design Group to inform them of our decision and to request a clearer sense of the details that will go into the above referenced interface condition effort. The clarification will be memorialized in the form of a scope of work addendum the details of which will be worked out between RRM Design Group and Planning Staff.
FISCAL IMPACT
The cost to prepare the Downtown Master Plan and an economic impact assessment is $330,000.00 including a 10% contingency ($30,000) to cover selected one or more of the valueadded tasks or unforeseen project expenses as requested by the City. The proposed scope of work includes three (3) additional or optional tasks that could be selected at a later time and funded by the contingency. Said optional tasks equate to $37,226. With respect to the funding source the Master Plan will be funded through the American Rescue Plan and as such will have no impact on the General Fund.