Opening of Proposals - RAISE Planning Project – The Market District Proj No. 123-053 - Abonmarche Consultants, Inc.

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Proposal for CITY OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA PROJECT APPROACH PROJECT APPROACH Our approach to this project begins with building a team that brings unparalleled local knowledge and national expertise redesigning streets and neighborhoods to be vibrant, people-centered spaces. Our team is led by Abonmarche. With our office located within the study area for over 25 years, we bring a detailed understanding of the conditions and issues in the study area. Abonmarche successfully designed one of the City’s first constructed Complete Street projects along Jefferson Boulevard east of the river. This design tied into the site design (also by Abonmarche) and reimagination of Howard Park and Niles Avenue in the East Bank. Abonmarche was also instrumental in the conceptual design of the Riverwalk neighborhood in conjunction with our developer client Century Builders. Currently ACI is under contract to design a shared multi-use path from the University of Notre Dame to downtown that was conceptualized by our team member, Toole Design. Toole Design has been instrumental in reimagining and redesigning many South Bend streets as places for people, not just cars. Toole Design led the concept design and community engagement that became the Smart Streets imitative – an approximately $25 million downtown two-way street conversion project that reinvigorated downtown. Toole has also worked with the City (and the University of Notre Dame) to develop concept designs for another half-dozen projects that will shift the transportation paradigm in South Bend to design streets that provide multimodal connections, spur economic development and reinvestment, and are places where people want to be. This includes the original concept design for the Market District as well as the upcoming LaSalle Avenue reconstruction and the future Colfax Avenue Streetscape projects. Toole Design also developed the City’s unpublished guidelines for tactile guidance for conventional streets, raised crossings and intersections, and flush streets (guidelines to be implemented in our team member Lawson Fisher’s design of Mishawaka Avenue). These projects reinforce Toole’s experience and knowledge of the area and how these projects will coalesce with all aspects of the Market District and concepts adopted by the City of South Bend. Lawson Fisher also brings a breadth of local knowledge and experience to the project. They bring their extensive knowledge of the INDOT design and construction process that will enable us to smoothly navigate the INDOT coordination aspect of this project required to remove and reconstruct intersections along the two state routes in the project area. Lawson Fisher also brings expertise in waterway permitting and hydraulics along the St. Joseph River which is second to none in the area. Additionally, they are currently under contract to design the first phase of the Market District along Mishawaka Avenue directly east of Belmont Avenue using the concepts developed by Toole Design and the University of Notre Dame in conjunction with the City. To capitalize on the expertise of all of our team members we propose the following approach to ensure the successful design and the implementation of all of the Market District projects in the years to come. The first stage of the project will include a comprehensive right of way, topographic, and utility survey of the area. In addition to the collection of new data we will use our collection of existing surveys in the area to supplement the new survey data to gain both efficiency in time as well as an increased level of accuracy. Concurrently, we will perform a comprehensive collection of existing traffic data in the area. We will perform counts at all pertinent streets and intersections that will be crucial to the conceptual design of alternatives for the street network in the area. We will use this data in conjunction with already available data from MACOG for traffic forecasting and modeling to ensure that design concepts are viable based on current and forecasted traffic. 7