RFQ Addendum 7.20.2026.pdf

ESRI ARCGIS URBAN SCENARIO PLANNING CREATION OF DIGITAL

DESIGN OF MODELS

ADDENDUM (July 20, 2026) TO REQUEST FOR QUALIFIFCATIONS

Q: What are the Town’s expectations for the full capabilities of the ArcGIS Urban tool at the end of the project?

A: The Town intends to use a digital twin model of the municipality to evaluate proposed developments and generate zoning, parcel, environmental, and fiscal data that quantifies impacts and supports robust analysis. This approach will enhance the planning process by increasing predictability and transparency in development review.

The tool will provide the capability to efficiently produce reports and summaries for a variety of development scenarios through a series of repeatable processes, standardized variables, and consistent evaluation metrics. These aspects of the tool will enable the Town to evaluate both proposed projects and existing conditions in a data-driven approach.

This digital twin will inform the decisions regarding open space preservation and optimization, existing infrastructure capacity, future capital improvement planning, and neighborhood buildout scenarios. At the same time, it will provide Town staff the ability to communicate information to the development community in a streamlined manner with data-driven information to support a more informed project planning process.

Q: How do you want to use the digital twin tool after the project is complete, and what decisions are you hoping this will impact?

A: Please refer to the question above.

Q: What is the current extent of available digitized town data? (parcel layers, street centerlines, utility data, etc.)

A: Currently, the Town's data extent includes water, sewer, stormwater asset locations and attributes; electrical and streetlight location and attributes; road center lines, striping, and pavement location and attributes; sign locations and attributes; zoning areas and designations;

environmental datasets (elevation, contours, flood plain, soil data, wetland designation); and code enforcement datasets (setbacks, environmental constraints, special districts).

The Town also utilizes separate software systems for asset management data as well as licensing for code enforcement and construction permitting.

Q: What do you think is missing or outdated in GIS data that would need to be developed by the awarded firm?

A: The missing components to our data include incorporation of fiscal analysis and prospective utility constraints into scenario planning. While the Town maintains existing utility and planning datasets, our goal is to combine that in a meaningful way to inform development decisions.

Q: What is the current state and quality of the foundational data being prepared by the Town and Esri Professional Services? Is it complete, or will the consultant participate in data preparation/QA?

The current state of foundational data that will be used in the building of the Urban model will be based on what the Town has available. The Town maintains existing utility, zoning, land use, and parcel datasets that do have adequate information on municipal assets. The consultant will generally participate in the manipulation and analysis of existing data. This will also be based on the specific configuration requirements for report generation/formatting that comes from the consultant.

Esri Professional Services will develop foundational metrics and implement existing datasets into the Urban model. This process will begin during the Fall of 2026.

Q: Could you please let us know whether this RFQ may be awarded to multiple vendors, or if the Town intends to make a single award?

A: This RFQ is intended to be awarded to a single vendor; however, a vendor is welcome to apply with a subconsultant(s). The subconsultant must be listed in the response.

Q: Does the Town have any restrictions on remote work, or on staff located outside the

United States performing analysis and development?

A: The Town will review applications from outside of the United States. Respondents to this RFQ should note potential time zone challenges, as the Town expects the selected consultant (or consultant team) to be available for regularly scheduled project meetings, as well as meetings with applicable municipal boards and committees, during regular US business hours.

Q: Are on-site presence or in-person meetings required at any point (e.g., the Project

Initiation Meeting, training sessions, presentations), or can these be conducted virtually?

A: On-site meetings are not required but are encouraged. The Town prefers in-person training.

Q: Does the Town of Ithaca have an active Esri account with a license that includes ArcGIS

Urban?

A: Yes, the Town of Ithaca currently has six (6) Professional Plus User Type licenses (which grant access to ArcGIS Urban).

Q: Professional Plus User Type License: does the Town provision this license to the selected consultant, or must the consultant supply their own?

A: The Town prefers the consultant supply their own license for this project. The Town also has available up to two (2) additional licenses should the consultant’s team require more based on the needs for the duration of the project.

Q: Will the consultant be granted access to the Town's ArcGIS Enterprise / ArcGIS Urban environment directly, or work in a separate/sandboxed environment? How is remote access provisioned?

A: The consultant will be granted access to a designated ArcGIS Online Users group set up with the consultant as a partnered organization. This will focus our organization's interaction with the consultant on project-related components. Remote access will be conducted within ArcGIS online framework via a browser or uploaded into ArcGIS online from any user workstations.

Q: Is there a target fee for this RFQ?

A: No, there is not a target fee for this project. Please refer to Section H.3. Submission

Requirements of the RFQ.

Q: Since this is an RFQ and the final scope and fee will be negotiated later, how detailed should the proposed staffing approach, hours, and fee structure be in the submission? Is there an expected submission format for this information?

A: The Town will formalize both a project and budget upon selection of a consultant (or consultant team). Responses to this RFQ do not require a specific format for this information.

Q: The RFQ requests “an all-inclusive flat hourly rate for the actions in the project scope.” Will the proposed hourly rates be considered as part of the formal scoring of qualifications?

A: The formal scoring of qualifications will be based on the consultant’s selected team members’ experience (50%), technical understanding (40%), and overall firm experience (10%) and qualifications.

Q: Section 3 requests an all-inclusive flat hourly rate per person. Is the Town expecting a not-to-exceed total, a rate schedule only, or both at this stage?

At this stage the Town is requesting both. The details of the not-to-exceed total can be further discussed at the interview step for the selected consultant.

Q: Are there grant-driven milestones or spend-down deadlines that constrain the project timeline?

A: The grant provided to the Town through the New York State Housing Trust Fund Corporation must be completed within one year of signing a grant agreement with New York State. The Town anticipates signing and executing said grant agreement in late July or early August.

Q: What is its expected completion date relative to project initiation (Fall 2026), and should road profile digitization proceed from a draft version or be treated as contingent on the

Manual's completion?

A: The estimated completion date of the Site Design and Development Criteria Manual is by the end of December 2026. The Town will formalize this aspect of the project upon selection of a consultant.

Q: Which study areas are the highest priority, and what level of analysis is expected for each, including South Hill TND, TND Medium Density areas, and TND High Density areas?

A: South Hill TND is the highest priority area. Through collaboration with the Town, Esri

Professional Services, and the selected consultant, this project area will contain a fully-digitized representation of the Regulating Plan—a special master zoning and development plan—in the model. This includes foundational work from Esri Professional Services, and the deeper analysis of economic, land value, revenue modeling, and suitability completed by the consultant.

TND Medium Density areas and TND High Density areas will analyze development potential and impacts based on metrics established during the development of a comprehensive approach to analyze the South Hill TND. These areas do not include digitization of Regulating Plans.

Q: What is the total acreage of all TND areas?

A: The combined acreage of all TND Medium Density and TND High Density areas (as designated in the Town's Future Land Use Map) is +/-864 acres.

Q: Have any proposals been developed for TND land-use areas other than the South Hill TND?

A: Only proposals for the South Hill TND have been developed.

Q: Does the Town expect the selected consultant to work within standard ArcGIS Urban functionality, or should the consultant anticipate customization to provide the metrics and visualizations needed for scenario planning?

A: The selected consultant will work within ArcGIS Urban functionality to implement metrics based on data gathered from fiscal and economic analysis of typical development costs.

Q: What does the Town mean by a “public-facing interactive experience,” and is that public interface part of this procurement or a future phase?

A: The Town of Ithaca envisions a publicly accessible portal where community members can access information related to development review projects and Traditional Neighborhood

Development. This portal can be a public dashboard or ArcGIS Urban environment.

Q: Is the creation and deployment of the public-facing interactive ArcGIS Urban

Hub/experience included in this immediate scope of work, or is the consultant only responsible for building the underlying models and internal workflows that will feed into a future public phase?

A: The consultant will develop workflows, data, and metrics that function independently and can be integrated into a future public-facing ArcGIS Urban experience.

Q: ArcGIS Urban allows the User to assess both land use changes and urban design and development scenarios through both parcels and building massings. Does the Town expect to leverage both approaches in how it anticipates running scenario modeling in the tool?

A: This project focuses on scenario planning through land use changes, focusing on fiscal, economic, land value, and revenue modeling. The Town will prioritize evaluation of development potential for individual parcels using customized metrics and criteria.

Q: Does the Town expect to have any custom dashboard or application development to allow for the expansion of visualization options for ArcGIS Urban beyond what is available in the default dashboard toolset?

A: The Town does not anticipate creation of a custom dashboard or application beyond the

ArcGIS Urban capabilities.

Q: To what level of detail does the Town want fiscal impacts to be calculated and validated, including assumptions for revenues, costs to serve, capital improvements, and absorption forecasts? This is important to understand when considering what is technically feasible for

ArcGIS Urban Metrics and Dashboard.

A: The Town will use ArcGIS Urban to conduct fiscal analysis of projects to understand their economic and infrastructure impacts, including immediate costs and ongoing costs for municipal providing services. Each variable (revenue, cost to serve, capital improvement, and absorption forecast) will be used in the creation of metrics in ArcGIS Urban, informing development decisions at the municipality.

Q: Does the Town already possess standardized, localized formulas, or a fixed cost-per-mile/cost-per-unit schedule for these infrastructure metrics, or will the consultant be expected to conduct independent economic research and capital improvement cost estimation to establish these baselines? Should the cost-to-serve analysis use a marginal/capacity-based approach (tied to existing Utility Network capacity data), an average-cost approach, or is methodology selection left to the Consultant to propose?

A: The Town possesses data that can support the development of capital improvement costs estimates, including cost per dwelling unit for the following: water (residential & nonresidential), sewer, school, fire protection, and park land. The Town utilizes a utility unit calculation to determine the cost and tax revenue of water and sewer services on a per parcel basis. This calculation is also tied to the parcels for usage and zoning classification. This information will be incorporated into the model and will establish baselines for the metrics.

The selected consultant (or consultant team) is expected to leverage available Town data, supplemented by independent economic research, to develop analysis metrics for ArcGIS

Urban. Specifically, the Town envisions comprehensive metrics used to quantify fiscal impacts of development, including Generic Environmental Impact Statement preparation costs.

Q: Neighborhood scale sustainability and clean energy technologies integration has often been a major opportunity to provide long-term reductions to tenant energy burden, right-sizing infrastructure investment, and fostering greater community resilience. Would there be any interest in having this area measured in the ArcGIS Urban scenario tool?

A: Yes, including metrics to visualize and understand the impacts of sustainable and clean energy would be a welcome addition to the project. While not inherently part of the project's proposed scope, understanding these metrics provides valuable insight into impacts of developments.

Q: What level of integration is expected with existing systems such as ArcGIS Pro, Utility

Network, and Cartegraph/OpenGov Asset Management, and are there any technical constraints or required interfaces?

A: The project would be developed around the ArcGIS Urban software, which already supports full integration with ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, and Utility Network. Since the Town currently integrates Cartegraph using ArcGIS Online, there should not be any technical constraints integrating it into existing software environments. There are no required interfaces for this project outside of working within the ArcGIS Urban environment.

Q: Can the Town clarify the scope delineation between Esri Professional Services, the selected consultant, and Town staff? Can the Town clarify the specific task split between Esri PS and the Consultant?

A: Esri Professional Services will provide the groundwork for establishing an ArcGIS Urban model. This includes work such as implementing existing Town Zoning regulations in Urban, establishing baseline metrics for Urban, and digitizing the existing Regulating Plan associated with the South Hill Traditional Neighborhood Development project. The consultant is expected to take a deeper dive into Urban capabilities by formulating additional financial, economic, housing, and environmental metrics to frame the impact of development projects in the Town of Ithaca. Town Staff will act as a coordinator between the selected consultant and Esri, while providing guidance on preferred Urban metrics.

Q: What are the Town’s expectations for staff training? Would this be something that we would need to coordinate with Esri Professional Services?

A: The Town expects one or more training sessions to facilitate efficient knowledge transfer of data and metrics. This training session may take the form of a presentation of the final deliverables created by the consultant team to select Town staff or municipal board/committee.

Esri Professional Services will host a separate ArcGIS Urban training series for Town staff to facilitate effective implementation and maintenance of the ArcGIS Urban model.

Q: The RFQ calls for “clear and concise documentation and training for Town Staff” and references “hands-on training upon completion.” Is there any known guidance on the intended audience, preferred format, or rough expectation for training effort, such as a single multi-hour workshop, several shorter sessions, or an ongoing series?

A: The Town expects one or more training sessions, presentations, and/or a comprehensive report to facilitate efficient knowledge transfer of data, metrics and studies created by the consultant. Town staff is the target audience for this knowledge transfer. Because the resulting data, metrics, and studies will support the development review process, it is essential that municipal staff fully understand the methodologies, capabilities, limitations, and appropriate applications of the project's deliverables.

Q: The RFQ states that the Consultant will “incorporate accessible design practices in all models” and that a public facing interactive experience is envisioned. Does the Town have a preferred accessibility standard or guideline that the project should align to?

A: The Town anticipates that project deliverables accessible to the public will follow guidelines listed in Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This includes the Web Content

Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.

Q: We understand that this project is being funded by a New York State Homes and

Community Renewal Technical Assistance to Grow Pro-Housing Communities Grant, is the full amount of the grant going to be available for the selected consultant, or will the funding need to be split between Esri Professional Services, the Town, and/or other project costs?

A: The full amount of funding from New York State Homes and Community Renewal will be split between Esri and the selected consultant.