Shelby County Government, an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, seeks to retain the services of one or more consultant firms to provide professional services for the development of the Mid-South Regional Greenprint and Sustainability Plan.

Shelby County Government was awarded the HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant to develop the Mid-South Regional Greenprint and Sustainability Plan. The plan is designed to establish a unified vision for a region-wide network of green space areas including parks, greenways, trails, byways, blue ways, conservation lands, natural areas, wildlife management areas, open space areas, and other similar spaces. The Mid-South Regional Greenprint and Sustainability Plan will be focused on open space but will establish a regional, comprehensive framework to address housing and neighborhood land use, community health and wellness, alternative transportation and fuels, resource conservation and environmental protection, workforce development and regional employment, accessibility, neighborhood engagement, and social equity.

The study area for this project is defined as the boundaries of the Memphis Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and West Memphis (Arkansas) MPO. The planning process will be driven by the Mid-South Regional Greenprint Consortium made up of greenways organizations, businesses, local and state government agencies, and citizens throughout the region. The consortium will be led by an executive committee, which will act as a decision-making and implementing agency for the planning process.

Effective community engagement and capacity building are critical to this process, and the project proposes to demonstrate a citizen-based regional planning process, driven by the consortium working in partnership with governmental bodies and the private sector to establish a regional vision and structure for ongoing collaborative cross-jurisdictional planning. The selected consultant will lead the visioning process with the consortium and develop a regional Greenprint report during the first year of the contract. The consultant will continue to assist the planning activities of the consortium through the life of the grant (until January 31, 2015).

For more information, visit http://shelbycountytn.gov/bids.aspx?bidID=385.