RFQ #2020-019 Comprehensive Master & Real Estate / Zoning
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RFQ #2020-019 Comprehensive Master & Real Estate / Zoning Redevelopment Plan for the City of Middletown’s Riverfront NOVEMBER 20, 2020 Contents LETTER OF INTRODUCTION 3 TAB 1 TEAM CHARACTERISTICS & COMPOSITION 5 TAB 2 STAFF RESUMES 13 TAB 3 RELEVANT PROJECTS 25 TAB 4 INITIAL IMPRESSIONS 37 COOPER ROBERTSON 1 2 RFQ #2020-019 Comprehensive Master & Real Estate / Zoning Development Plan November 20, 2020 Ms. Donna L. Imme, CPPB Supervisor of Purchases City of Middletown 245 DeKoven Drive, Room 112 Middletown, CT 06457 RE: Qualifications for Comprehensive Master and Real Estate/Zoning Development Plan for the City of Middletown's Riverfront Dear Ms. Imme, Thank you for the opportunity to submit Cooper Robertson's qualifications for the Comprehensive Master & Real Estate/Zoning Development Plan. We have assembled a team with broad experience on similar projects and an extensive history of collaborating on challenging assignments in Connecticut and around the country. We have included New Haven-based firm, Langan Engineering, who will provide civil, transportation engineering and landscape architecture services. We have also included Karp Strategies, a planning advisory firm specialized in equitable economic development and stakeholder outreach. Our team was particularly inspired by the Riverfront Planning Principles in the RFQ and see tremendous opportunities for the creation of a vibrant new district that will: • Distinguish Middletown as a unique experience and destination • Build an inclusive community and support a thriving local economy • Increases connectivity to downtown through diverse transportation options • Establish new zoning that both attracts investment and guides smart growth We share your aspirations to capitalize on your riverfront and create a more connected, prosperous, and inspiring future for Middletown. We look forward to the opportunity to meet with you and to discuss this very exciting project in more detail. Sincerely, Donald Clinton, AIA, MRAIC, LEED AP Mike Aziz, AIA, LEED AP Partner Partner, Director of Urban Design Email: [email protected] [email protected] Tel: 917-514-4879 347-882-7729 123 William Street cooperrobertson.com New York NY 10038 212 247 1717 4 RFQ #2020-019 Comprehensive Master & Real Estate / Zoning Development Plan 1 TEAM CHARACTERISTICS & COMPOSITION Cooper Robertson continually strives to provide the best service to clients and communities alike by pursuing excellence in design at both the urban and human scales. Our Team Cooper Robertson has assembled a team of local experts with decades of collective experience guiding successful redevelopments of waterfront communities across the country - including many Connecticut towns and cities, such as Stamford, Hartford, New Haven, and Groton. Each member of our streamlined three-firm team brings expertise in multiple areas to cover all aspects of the project scope, from master planning to engagement and implementation. While each waterfront community we work with is unique, the challenges we face are often similar. How dense is too dense? Where will people park and how is traffic managed? Who 'owns' the shoreline, and how public should it be? How best to safeguard against flooding? How can zoning and financial incentives be structured to benefit the city, landowners and underrepresented community groups? And finally, an issue of great importance to Middletown - how to build consensus through the planning process? The following pages illustrate our experience and expertise across each of these issues in more detail. VISION COOPER ROBERTSON CITY OF MIDDLETOWN I M KARP P L LANGAN STRATEGIES T E N M E E N M E T A G T A I G O N N E COOPER ROBERTSON 7 Campbell's Soup Gateway District Master Plan in Camden, NJ Cooper Robertson Master Planning and Architecture We are collaborative by nature, good listeners, gifted designers and skilled leaders of master planning projects—all of which will be essential to this assignment. Cooper Robertson practices award-winning design in treating them with decency, paying them fairly, and master planning and architecture, with both disciplines nurturing their growth. People stay for the quality of the working together at a wide range of scales, and each work environment as much as for the work itself; many influencing the other in ways beneficial to its clients. of our competitors simply cannot make that claim, and we feel that’s a real differentiator. When our clients Since its founding in 1979, the firm’s name has become receive our work, it’s the product of our people, and synonymous with excellence in design in everything that’s what our business is all about. Everything we do from cities to gardens, beginning with the master is people first: clients, consultants and colleagues plan for Battery Park City, including the design of the alike. waterfront esplanade there. Over the past four decades Cooper Robertson has gone on to design over 40 Cooper Robertson is a Limited Liability Partnership and waterfront communities. is located in Lower Manhattan. The firm has a staff of more than 30 architects and designers. A common thread in all of our work is the conviction that history, landscape, architecture, culture and We have received over a hundred design awards for the human condition must be taken as one to achieve our work and we are the first firm to receive national things of lasting value. American Institute of Architects Honor Awards in both architecture and urban design in the same year. Integrity and civility are the cornerstones of our firm. We recruit good, talented people and retain them by 8 RFQ #2020-019 Comprehensive Master & Real Estate / Zoning Development Plan Downtown Celebration in Celebration, Florida MASTER PLANNING Over the years, we have developed and tested new methods for engagement--ranging from physical We help create human-scaled, people-centered, and models and map activities to interactive websites and accessible communities through an engaging and immersive media--that engender creative collaboration. equitable design process. We help design communities The current pandemic has led to us to develop new that are livable and walkable and create tools to reform alternative methods of consultation and digital zoning and street design to contribute to diverse and engagement and we believe that getting this right will vibrant neighborhoods. be key to the master plan process. We are committed to finding the most appropriate and effective solutions Our approach to master planning is based on five no matter how the present situation evolves over the simple rules. When followed, they bring out the best in coming months. a community, and when our work is done, we hope to leave it "the same, only better". ZONING SUPPORT Rules of Master Planning: We believe in bridging the gap between design and • Learn from what exists implementation, developing master plans that provide a • Build on existing strengths design vision that inspires and sets communities on the • Extend and enhance the public realm path to achieve placemaking goals, but also provides • Make connections frameworks that can be efficiently regulated. To that • Make it familiar for those who will use it end, our team is deeply experienced in all phases of the regulatory approval and adoption process. We are often ENGAGEMENT asked to conduct peer reviews of zoning applications and have authored zoning regulations for districts as Given the diversity of land ownership in the study large, and potentially as diverse, as the Middletown area effective community engagement will critical to Riverfront District. this project. We envision an ongoing and meaningful conversation with a wide range of stakeholders throughout the planning and design process. Our philosophy of engagement is rooted in the fact that there is no one size-fits-all technique. COOPER ROBERTSON 9 Langan Civil and Transportation Engineering, Landscape Architecture Langan provides an integrated mix of engineering Our integrated services including site/civil engineering, and environmental consulting services in support geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, of land development projects, corporate real estate traffic/transportation engineering, survey/mapping, portfolios, and the oil and gas industry. Our clients natural resources/permitting and sustainable design include developers, property owners, public agencies, often become a critical part of the master plan. It corporations, institutions, and energy companies is important that the “big” ideas created during the around the world. master planning process actually make sense. We provide the engineering support and work with the team Founded in 1970, Langan employs over 1,100 in the creative design process while considering and professionals in its Parsippany, NJ headquarters and addressing the engineering-related opportunities and among 27 regional offices. constraints to ensure a realistic end result. MASTER PLANNING Whether it’s a large-scale new city or a small-scale campus, an understanding of the infrastructure needs, At Langan, we relentlessly pursue improvements in soil/groundwater conditions, traffic and transportation the quality of our work and strive to know our clients issues, environmental constraints and potential natural and their needs better than any other firm in our resource permitting requirements is necessary. We are a field. Langan merges many disciplines under the land development engineering firm and are constantly umbrella of comprehensive planning, engineering,