RFP-274-PRCR-RACCSP2026-ArtsCommunityCreativeSpaces-Addendum.02.pdf

Request for Proposal #: 274-PRCR-RACCSP2026

Title: Raleigh’s Arts Community Creative Spaces Plan

Proposal Due Date & Time: September 25, 2026 by 5pm EST

Addendum No. 2 Issue Date: September 11, 2026 Issuing Department: Parks, Recreation & Cultural

Resources Direct All Inquiries to: Bekah Torcasso Park Planner bekah.torcasso@raleighnc.gov

This Addendum, containing the following additions, clarifications, and/or changes, is issued prior to receipt of submittal packages and does hereby become part of the original RFP documents and supersedes the original RFP documents in case of conflict.

Receipt of this addendum must be acknowledged by signing in the area indicated below. Please make the follow additions, clarifications, and/or changes to the RFP as listed below and sign and return this addendum with your submittal package.

Sign below and return this addendum with your proposal.

Proposer Name & Company: ________________________________________ Date: __________________

Signature: _________________________________________ Title: __________________________________ mailto:bekah.torcasso@raleighnc.gov

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Table of Contents Responses to RFP Questions

I. RFP Logistics and Evaluation

II. Proposal Submission Requirements

III. Project Overview

IV. Scope of Services: Guiding Principles

V. Scope of Services: Working with Raleigh Arts

VI. Scope of Services: Research, Assessment & Analysis

VII. Scope of Services: Strategic Planning

VIII. Scope of Services: Sharing the Planning Process and Plan: Communication & Documentation

IX. Scope of Services: Miscellaneous Questions

Responses to RFP Questions Responses to questions received about this RFP Friday, August 28 – Friday, September 4 are provided below.

I. RFP Logistics and Evaluation

1. Who is on the selection committee?

The selection committee has not yet been finalized. It will include both City staff and community members with the goal of bringing people to the table with a range of relevant expertise and perspectives.

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II. Proposal Submission Requirements

2. The Raleigh Arts Community Creative Spaces RFP lists three acceptable forms of financial documentation: (1) independent CPA audited/ reviewed financial statements, (2) independent CPA compiled financial statements plus other evidence of financial stability, or (3) a certified, signed statement from a licensed CPA verifying the firm's financial viability. Please confirm whether Option 3 alone is sufficient to satisfy this requirement.

We confirm that Option 3 alone is sufficient to satisfy the Financial Information requirement (Segment 7 of RFP section 4.1) for proposal documentation.

3. For Appendix 1: Proposal Cost Form, please share the level of "proposal cost breakdown" required.

The City does not have a required level of “proposal cost breakdown”. However, it would be helpful if you broke out into at least the four project parts from the Scope of Services. Breaking out costs further in the same way you breakdown project parts in your proposal’s “Project Understanding, Approach and Schedule” segment would be even better. For each of those sections, please tell us how many hours each team member will spend on them. In addition, please provide a separate hourly rate chart for your team members.

4. Please confirm that for this proposal a total of three (3) references are required and that the references described in RFP Section 4.1’s Segment 2: Corporate Background and Experience, Appendix II: Proposer Questionnaire and Appendix III: Reference Questionnaire, are all for the same three (3) references.

We confirm that a grand total of three (3) references from similar contracts performed in the past five (5) years are required for proposal submissions.

References from government agencies are preferred. You may also submit more references than required but should do so only if you feel it is truly important to your proposal. References who submit a completed Reference Questionnaire should match the references listed in the Proposer Questionnaire.

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5. Appendix II instructs proposers not to include the City of Raleigh as a reference for purposes of meeting the three-reference minimum. Does this restriction apply to the City as a whole, or only to the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Department? Specifically, may a proposer list City of Raleigh staff from other departments as references for work performed for those departments?

No, City of Raleigh staff from any and all departments may not be used as references for this proposal submission. The restriction does not apply solely to the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Department; it applies to the City as a whole. However, in the required list of all similar contracts performed in the past five

(5) years, you may include other City of Raleigh projects

III. Project Overview

6. Does the City have defined a vision of success – five years from now, for example?

Long story short, our ultimate dream is that everybody in Raleigh who wants to make art can find a place to do it across the city. How close we can get to that vision and what it looks like when we get there is what we’re going to find out through this planning process.

We know Raleigh doesn’t have rundown, yet trendy, empty, old commercial buildings available to rehab, nor is the city home to a large stock of multi-billionaires with private foundations to bankroll major capital support programs. We also know the State has some real estate laws that restrict municipalities’ ability to incentive developers in ways that benefit the arts.

So, this project is about figuring out what tools Raleigh does in fact have in its toolbox, and what tools it may have mislaid or forgotten, to fix our growing creative space problem. It’s an adaptive challenge – one without best practices already available to solve it.

In his presentations Richard Evans, who founded EmcArts an organization focused on innovation in the arts, always quoted Andre Gide – “One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” That’s what we want to do and what this project requires. It’s also what Raleigh Arts is known for

– going out into the unknown, exploring and trying things, to see what we can come up with to provide new pathways to creating public value through the arts.

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7. Are you envisioning a plan that focuses on City policy and Raleigh Arts priorities actions? Or are there other actors / sectors / entities for which recommendations would be made?

We are looking for a plan that addresses the Raleigh Arts Community’s increasingly critical need for inclusive, affordable and sustainable space in Raleigh. The plan will inevitably include goals and strategies for the City of Raleigh and Raleigh Arts in particular to carry out. However, if solving the creative spaces problem requires work by other actors, sectors, and/or entities, then the plan should include recommendations for them as well.

8. Does the city have a vision or preference for the overall tone and structure of the strategic plan? For example, does the City want a strategic plan that is visionary and aspirational, one that is laser focused on implementation, a combination of both, or something else entirely?

We are interested in a plan that sets vision and direction then provides actionable goals and strategies, along with some implementation recommendations. What the plan should not be is a long laundry list of down-in-the-weeds tactics. With the Raleigh Arts Plan over the past 10 years, the actionable goals and strategies remained constant. However, the tactics we used to achieve them shifted substantially as things in Raleigh and across the country changed. That combination approach worked well for us, so we’re looking for a format that keeps the City moving forward and keeps the plan from gathering dust on a shelf.

9. To what extent does the City want to identify specific real estate opportunities throughout this process? This is a specific question within a broader one of how implementation focused, the strategic plan needs to be. Are you all hoping to come out of this with identified sites to target, whether they are City-owned or privately owned or whatever? Is that an explicit goal of the strategic plan, or are you focused more on policy and program interventions.

The goal of this strategic planning process is to identify solutions to Raleigh’s Arts Community’s creative space issues – whatever those solutions may be. We are not focused solely on identifying suitable real estate sites, nor are we focused primarily on changes to City policies, ordinances, and/or funding programs. The goal of this planning project is to figure out why artists and arts groups have issues finding and staying in creative spaces, then determine realistic solutions to those problems.

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10. Are there any specific concerns/limitations you've run into or are concerned about running into that you would like the hired firm to address?

We believe the Guiding Principles articulate specific values we hold as part of this planning process, while the research focus areas identified in the RFP’s section 2.5, “Research, Assessment, and Analysis”, highlight Raleigh Arts’ specific areas of concern.

IV. Scope of Services: Guiding Principles

11. The RFP identifies the need for expertise in universal design, but the scope of work does not appear to include design services. Does the City envision a design component to this project?

While Raleigh architect Ron Mace coined the term “universal design” in the 1980’s, we do not envision there being a design component to this project. Universal design encompasses more than just architectural design. For this project we see fluency in universal design as integral to all facets of communications, meeting design and facilitation, and constituent engagement, as well as integral to assessing creative space options and developing creative space recommendations and strategies for the plan.

Universal design focuses on best practices for engaging the widest range of people possible. By contrast for people with disabilities the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) only sets the low bar for the worst practices you can follow without actually breaking the law. For example, in terms of identifying potential creative space sites, if there are stairs to a building’s front entrance but a flat entrance with a manual door in the back, it probably complies with the ADA. However, it makes second class citizens of anybody with mobility issues, as well as anybody with a broken leg, families with strollers, delivery people and more. Therefore, for this project that type of site should not be recommended, or it might get a qualified recommendation contingent upon required entrance upfits being done.

V. Scope of Services: Working with Raleigh Arts

12. How many members comprise (or are anticipated to comprise) the steering Committee?

We expect the steering committee to comprise 10-15 members.

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13. You expressed that this is going to be a very collaborative process with lots of engagement, both with key stakeholders as well as with the public. Did you have a season or timeline in mind for when stakeholder engagement should occur in terms of frequency of public facing meetings vs more targeted conversations?

We do not have predetermined timelines or frequency for stakeholder engagement and meetings. The constituent and key stakeholder engagement plan design, as well as the strategic planning process design will determine when and how those groups will participate in this project.

14. Are artist and small organization stipends for participating in charettes and discussion groups included in the $250,000 budget or is there a separate allocation?

We do not have a separate budget for artist and small organization participation stipends.

15. How are your relationships in the City's Planning and Development, as well as the Economic & Social Advancement Department? Have your colleagues there been involved in this conversation to date?

Raleigh Arts has strong relationships and regularly works with many City departments, including the two above. We are known for being collaborative project partners, timely and responsive to requests, and good at following other departments’ required processes and procedures. In addition, City departments actually just like art and are interested in incorporating it into the work they do. For example, Planning and Development is in the process of selecting two paid artists in residence to help with comprehensive planning; Economic and Social Advancement is currently looking at how to better support creative businesses: and the Transportation Department dedicated its own departmental funds to create universally designed public art as part of its latest construction project – a new ADA transportation center.

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16. Also have your colleagues in the City’s Planning and Economic Development Department been involved in this arts affordability and displacement conversation to date?

The City’s Special Projects Office, which is an offshoot of the Planning Department, has already expressed interest in working on this project. Because economic development is not a specific goal of this project, nor is it included in the Guiding Principles, we have not talked with the Economic and Social Advancement Department about this project yet. We do have good working relationships with staff there and expect they will participate once this project gets underway.

VI. Scope of Services: Research, Assessment & Analysis

17. The Research, Analysis and Assessment scope includes "historic states, current conditions, and anticipated changes over the next 10 years are required to provide adequate context and a strong foundation ….” What does “historic states” refer to in this context?

Looking back 15-20 years ago, before the Great Recession, it appears that arts organizations were more successful at finding, funding and maintaining creative spaces. We believe it’s important to know if that was in fact true, and, if it was, what was different then versus now. In short “historic states” was a shorter, but apparently less clear, way to say, “it’s important to figure out how things worked in the past.”

18. Has the City collected individual arts organization financial/capacity data we'd have access to, or is primary data collection (surveys, interviews) part of the consultant's scope?

We have arts organization financial data that can be shared with the selected firm.

Organizational capacity is not restricted to financial health but also includes but is not limited to things like fundraising/development expertise, staff capacity, and board governance strength. Assessing organizational capacity, beyond financial health and stability, is part of the scope of services for this project.

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19. RFP Section 2.5 identifies the local philanthropic ecosystem and capital support as a research focus area. How broadly should the capital and funding analysis extend?

Some arts organizations have indicated that contributed income, particularly support for capital projects, is weaker than in the past. The focus of philanthropic ecosystem and capital support research should be to answer the following questions: 1) Has the local philanthropic ecosystem and capital support in particular contracted over the past 15-20 years and, if so, what has been lost? 2) Does the current philanthropic ecosystem (private and public) provide adequate capital project resources? 3) If the local philanthropic ecosystem has been contracting over the past two decades, is that trend likely to continue and/or are there other contributed income trends on the horizon that could positively or negatively impact arts groups ability to raise capital support?

20. Can you provide any further clarification of the aspects of the real estate landscape that you feel should be evaluated?

Once Raleigh’s Arts Community members’ creative space needs have been identified, real estate research, assessment and analysis will determine what types of sites might be available to address those needs, as well as cost. The exact research questions will be designed once this project is up and running.

21. Is there an existing creative-space inventory or GIS dataset from prior planning efforts we should assume as a starting point, or does inventory-building start from scratch under this scope?

We do have access to existing cultural asset inventories/GIS datasets from prior planning projects to share with the selected firm. However, it is likely that those inventories will need to be updated.

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22. Does the City of Raleigh have an existing inventory of cultural assets and organizations, including locations/addresses for known arts and cultural spaces and organizations, or should development of this inventory be included in the consultant scope of work? If an inventory exists, what information does it include beyond location, such as discipline/type, operating budget, nonprofit status, staff size, occupancy costs, square footage, and capital needs?

We do have access to existing cultural asset inventories/GIS datasets from prior planning projects to share with the selected firm. However, it is likely that those inventories will need to be updated. Inventories do identify discipline/type, but they do not include occupancy costs and square footage. For cultural assets used by nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, operating budgets and staff sizes are available as a separate data set. Assessing capital needs of Raleigh’s Arts Community is part of the scope of services for this project.

23. Can the City provide an inventory of City-owned buildings that are expected to become vacant, underutilized, or otherwise available following the consolidation of City offices into the new City Hall, including any properties being considered for sale, disposition, or reuse that could represent opportunities for future arts and cultural uses?

Yes, we can provide an inventory of City properties that could represent opportunities for future arts and cultural programming. However, downtown buildings currently housing City offices cannot be converted to creative spaces. The City will sell those sites to help pay for the new Civic Campus building currently under construction.

24. Will housing be included in the real estate analysis?

No. This project’s focus is specifically on spaces for active artmaking, sharing and learning. Therefore, housing will not be included in the real estate analysis. In addition, the State of North Carolina’s has placed restrictions on using occupancy preferences (like artists and other businesses) in conjunction with affordable housing initiatives.

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VII. Scope of Services: Strategic Planning

25. Task 4 appears to focus primarily on communications. Beyond those activities, is broader public or stakeholder engagement expected to inform the development of the strategic plan itself, in addition to coordination with City staff and the steering committee?

Yes, Raleigh’s Arts Community members are expected to engage in and inform the development of the strategic plan itself, in addition to work by City staff and the steering committee. Engagement by the broader public is not a high priority compared to these other constituent groups.

VIII. Scope of Services: Sharing the Planning Process and Plan:

Communication & Documentation

26. There are several references in the RFP to using best practices for people with disabilities in the graphic design elements, which I love. Do you have any documentation on the standards for those best practices that the City of Raleigh is using that we can reference?

The City’s Communications Department has a number of accessible communications resources that can be shared. Raleigh Arts has additional accessible communications resources it can share if needed.

IX. Scope of Services: Miscellaneous Questions

27. Do you have an idea of a program yet for the Raleigh Arts Community Creative Spaces available or is this something the firm hired will be drafting?

We do not have an idea of a program available. The goal of this planning project is to determine Raleigh’s Arts Community’s needs, develop and assess options for addressing them, and create a long-range plan to move that work forward. The goal of this project is not to develop and draft one stand-alone program, nor do we believe that a single program can adequately address Raleigh’s Arts Community’s creative space issues and needs.

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28. Is there any public funding allocated for future implementation of the strategies identified in the plan?

For long-range strategic plans, the City does not typically identify and allocate public funds for implementation before the planning process has even started. The same is true for this project.

29. Has a site/sites been picked already, and how much indoor/outdoor space is available for consideration?

We do not have a list of predetermined sites available for consideration. The goal of this planning project is to figure out why artists and arts groups have issues finding and staying in creative spaces, then determine realistic solutions to those problems.

30. Any concerns or ideas regarding how you want to handle supplies/storage?

We assume by “supplies/storage” you mean storage for arts organizations and artists’ supplies. Currently, we have no concerns or ideas regarding supplies/storage, because we don’t want to make any assumptions about what arts community members need. If storage sites are a particular need, it will come out during the Research, Assessment and Analysis phase.