Knoxville-Knox County Planning is soliciting proposals from qualified firms for assistance in engaging stakeholders and providing Transit Oriented Development (TOD) planning expertise in the City of Knoxville (COK).

Request for Proposals

Submissions

Proposals are due Tuesday, October 1, 2024 by 4:30 pm EST and can be submitted electronically. More detailed instructions are outlined in a later section of this document.

Submit Proposal

Questions

Questions or inquiries about the proposal are to be made in writing (email) prior to September 20, 2024, and answers may be posted to the website. Origin of the questions will not be identified.

Please direct questions via email to Doug Burton at doug.burton@knoxplanning.org.

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1. We assume that a consultant fee will be negotiated for this project. Please confirm. To right-size our effort it is helpful to know if a consultant fee has been established for this effort. Can you share what an anticipated consultant fee or fee range may be?
   
   Please do not include a fee proposal as part of your submittal. A consultant fee will be negotiated for this project after consultant qualifications are evaluated and ranked based on the criteria listed in the RFP. Planning will start negotiations with the highest ranked consultant. If a contract cannot be agreed upon, Planning will negotiate with the next highest ranked consultant, and so on. We are not divulging an anticipated fee or fee range.
2. Can you share the size of the federal grant associated with this RFP?
   
   The funding for this grant was awarded from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), as part of their Areas of Persistent Poverty Program, to the City of Knoxville and Knoxville Area Transit (KAT). When matched, the total amount of funding available for the grant is $400,000. However, this is not the amount budgeted for the work associated with this RFP.
3. In the RFP, I have not identified any evaluation submittal requirements beyond that it can be submitted electronically. Is there a maximum file size? Proposal sheet count, etc.? To whom/where shall we submit the proposal? To you? A procurement site download portal?
   
   Please submit the proposals at www.knoxplanning.org/rfp. On Planning’s website there will be an RFP page with a submit proposal button. This button will allow you to download your document. You can address any correspondence to Doug Burton in the proposal. There is no page limit or file size, but we would encourage you to be as concise as possible.
4. Should we tailor our response to correspond with the evaluation criteria?
   
   There is no requirement on how a proposal should be structured. However, it is important that the respondent addresses the evaluation criteria as that is how proposal will be scored and ranked.
5. We understand that we need to provide a schedule as part of our Project Management proposal. A project commencement and kickoff meeting dates are identified in the RFP. Has a project competition date been identified?
   
   This contract for TOD planning expertise will be completed on April 30, 2025.
6. I understand that the final day for questions is September 20. I found this RFP on the APA RFP webpage. Can you provide a Knoxville-Knox County Planning procurement webpage link to where questions will be answered? Will the answer to these questions be posted on the website before September 20?
   
   The response to any questions we receive will be posted on www.knoxplanning.org/rfp on September 20, 2024. On the RFP page there will be answers to all questions submitted by the deadline for questions.
7. Can a link be provided to any background information (past studies/ mapping) concerning the project?

• Link to map showing new KAT routes
• Planning’s Development Activity Report page and dashboard – they show where development has (and has not) been occurring over the past several years
• Same for Planning’s Groundbreakers web map
• Knoxville future land use map (KGIS)
• Middle housing policy, standards, maps
• City of Knoxville Housing Strategy
• Planning’s Priority Populations

8. What are the fixed route modes for this/these corridors? If BRT, do buses run in exclusive lanes?
   
   The only provider of fixed-route services is Knoxville Area Transit (KAT). KAT only provides fixed-route services using buses. KAT services are primarily provided within the City of Knoxville. See KAT’s website at www.katbus.com for a system map. The City of Knoxville is working to implement an Advance Bus Corridor (ABC) on Broadway. However, this will still be using fixed-route buses. This project will include transit stop pull-offs, que-jumping lanes, and extended traffic signals for transit priority, but there will not be an exclusive transit lane. KAT implemented new fixed-route transit services starting August 26, 2024. Part of the new services included very frequent – 15-minute bus service - on several of Knoxville’s main corridors.
9. Have you determined which existing corridor(s) and station locations that the scope of work will address? How many corridors will be explored? Will the scope include any future/planned corridors/station locations as part of this work scope?
   
   As discussed in the RFP, Planning is just at the beginning stages of identifying TOD opportunities. So, at this point no corridors have been identified. In conjunction with the work listed in the RFP, Planning is conducting an analysis and will identify a list of potential corridors. While Planning is developing the metrics to evaluate the corridors, we realize we are lacking in TOD experience. Part of the consultant’s task is to provide their knowledge of the characteristics that lend themselves to potential TOD type developments, which will be incorporated along with Planning’s other metrics, to help finalize the ranking of the corridors.
10. What is the final product? Will the recommendations be in a standalone document or will text, data, and graphics be folded into another plan/study?
    
    This will be a standalone document, but all text, data, and graphics should be provided in a format so they can be incorporated into other documents, storyboards, websites, etc. if needed.
11. How many community engagement sessions are anticipated (Public / Key Stakeholders)? Do applicants have access to the results of the stakeholder engagement to date?
    
    This is the very beginning of this type of work in our community.  There has been no public outreach to-date concerning Transit Oriented Development.  We do not have a particular format or number of community engagement sessions in mind. We will look for the selected consultant to lend their expertise and provide recommendations through the creation of an engagement plan. Planning will work with the consultant to group in-person meetings to help limit travel, if necessary.