The Hill District is a historically African-American neighborhood with an illustrious past and many plans for a great future. In the realm of parks, recreation, and open space, there are a number of recent and current investments as well as many opportunities for improvement of existing spaces, many of which have suffered from disinvestment over the years or simply need a thoughtful redesign based on current needs. Hence, the City of Pittsburgh seeks to undertake the development of a Hill District Parks Master Plan to analyze the current and projected state of its parksand open spaces in order to make recommendations for improving individual parks as part of a neighborhood parks system. This work will also closely follow a Greater Hill District Neighborhood Plan process, and it is expected that the two planning processes will complement or potentially be integrated with one another. Both will be led by the Department of City Planning.

This Hill District Parks Master Plan should build upon previous plans, such as Pittsburgh's OpenSpacePGH Plan (2013, a component of the City's Comprehensive Plan) and the Hill District "Greenprint" (2009, Hood Design Studio). Additionally, there are a number of recent, current, and upcoming efforts that will need to be integrated into this master plan, such as the aforementioned Greater Hill District Neighborhood Plan as well as various improvements being made by the Department of Public Works and other partners such as the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

The ultimate objective of this master plan is to generate community consensus around conceptual park plans with phasing and cost estimates, similar to recent City of Pittsburgh park master plans including those for South Side Park and Sheraden Park. Then, the Department of Public Works and other partners can use recommendations from the master plan to begin phased park design and implementation. For this master plan in particular, two foundational goals are to build upon the Hill District's rich African American cultural legacy, and to improve park and open spaces for residents, creating green and well designed community spaces,while avoiding displacement.

The Hill District has nine neighborhood parks totaling 41.1 acres, but there is no community-scale park with higher level recreational resources and facilities to adequately serve the more than 9,500 residents of the Hill neighborhood. The City's Open Space Plan recommended that either Ammon Park or Kennard Park should be re-designated as a community park with additional amenities.

The Hill District Master Plan recommends the development of a master site plan for Kennard to convert it to a community-scale park, which is the primary focus of this RFP, although it is also expanded to be more comprehensive of a "system" of Hill District parks, and to include recommendations for other parks as well.

This parks master plan is partially funded through a Community Conservation and Partnerships Program grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), with a total budget of $106,000.

All planning and work products must align with the DCNR's planning grant program requirements. To that end, the City Solicitor is required to sign a Certificate of Title form, and title searches for City park parcels should be included in the scope of work for this master plan.