Civic Projects and Places

The Civic Projects and Places service unit of the Urban Projects Group works primarily with internal city partners to make plan visions a reality through effective prioritization, creative design solutions, and funding methodologies. This team also provides urban design and placemaking services for civic projects that lend a unique local identity and improve quality of life experience. With each project implemented, this team advocates for excellence in urban design, cultural inclusion, sustainability, and beauty.

The key services provided by this unit include:

• Project management and coordination for civic projects: this team leads and facilitates coordination and management of prioritized civic implementation projects/plans. They take lead in the early phase of project delivery initiating early concepts and preliminary design products for prioritized civic projects. Beyond that, they facilitate coordination and monitoring of the schematic design and construction phases of the project working with our internal partners. The team strives to ensure effective coordination and management for successful project implementation through all phases of a civic project.
• Capital planning: this team leads the review and prioritization of capital projects in adopted planning documents through a lens of equity, departmental alignment, sustainability, and other city priorities. They develop strategies for implementation, including partnering with other city departments for funding, scheduling, and project delivery.  They advocate for implementation of planned projects in the city’s budget and pursue other creative funding sources. 
• Civic places program: this program is focused on the creation of greater quality public spaces that lends a unique local identity and better connects the place and its people for a better quality of life experience. The small-scale projects eligible under this program could range from streetscape elements, public plazas, sidewalks, bikeways, ramp improvements, and public space activations. This team leads and manages the overall implementation of small-scale public realm projects.
• Streetscape plan review and administration: this team serves as lead project administrator for all privately and publicly initiated streetscape plans and shepherds them through the legislative process for final adoption. If you are contemplating a custom streetscape, please reach out to the team.
• Strategizing multimodal infrastructure implementation: this team leads an inter-departmental working group focused on developing strategies for enhancing multimodal connectivity between the city’s key current and future activity centers. They continue to develop new methodologies that assess critical connectivity gaps target areas. They partner with city’s transportation team to explore creative strategies for funding and implementing projects that address connectivity gaps citywide with an equity lens.