PROJECT DESCRIPTION

This is a request for qualifications from firms with extensive experience in innovative city-wide planning for cities with similar characteristics as the City of Joliet, Illinois, to create a unique "Comprehensive Plan" that guides how we should adapt, respond, improve, and transform for inclusive growth, sustainable development, and equitable prosperity over the next ten years in Joliet, Illinois.

The City of Joliet has not had a Comprehensive Plan since 1959. Over the years, many focused planning documents have been published by the City to either fill a specific need (i.e., downtown revitalization) or focus on a community area within the city (i.e., neighborhood quality of life plans). These plans have been used by the City's Planning Division and other agencies to make planning, financial, and infrastructure decisions. They have also resulted in fragmented, non-cohesive planning across the city.

This project will take a fresh look at these previous studies, existing conditions, market and economic realities, and resident and stakeholder input and align them into a strategically prepared plan that:

• Reflects the voice of residents who have shared their hopes, concerns, and dreams for the future,
• Integrates current citizen insights, the competitive landscape, and market dynamics,
• Frames complex and ambiguous issues to gauge citizen experiences and solutions,
• Identifies transformation projects and initiatives based on city aspirations and available resources,
• Recommends growth opportunities to address capability gaps, and
• Creates a more consistent and unifying strategy for the future that makes it easier for decision-makers to know what could be built and where.

We will use the final deliverable as a foundational guide for planning and future land use decisions per the values and priorities of our communities and as a plan to help make decisions in response to new opportunities or unexpected problems. In addition, the deliverable will help identify a baseline of the city's capability to direct change, which recommendations are feasible and financially tenable, and the changes needed to shape the city's physical development and trajectory forward as an emerging center of economic activity in the Chicago region. The deliverable is expected to be a dynamic document that can help us meet emerging opportunities with the flexibility needed to take advantage of those opportunities.

Preferred firms will have proven success designing municipal planning processes that set a city's long-term vision, values, goals, and deliverables and synergize local planning, policy, land use, capital improvement, and investment decisions.

A premium will be placed on firms that demonstrate project success with outstanding plan branding and thoughtfully designed community engagement processes. The firm must be able to facilitate the translation of public information and input between the English language and Spanish, Polish, and others, as necessary.

RFQ SUBMITTAL INFORMATION

To learn more about our request for a Comprehensive Plan and for instructions on how to submit your qualifications, please visit our Bids and Proposals webpage on the City's website. https://www.joliet.gov/government/departments/purchasing/bids-proposals