Concerns over city contracting with out-of-town vendors has slowed the process for reimagining Pack Square Park and celebrating a historic neighborhood of Black-owned businesses in downtown Asheville.
By this month, a project facilitator was supposed to be on board to lead public engagement and other tasks for a “Boosting the Block” project, an ambitious plan to design a physical gateway to a cultural corridor through the district centered at Eagle and Market streets downtown.
But as of Monday, that project remains in limbo, after the City Council stalled the selection of a contractor stalled on March 12. Back then, the council declined to take action on a selection panel’s recommendation for a Durham-based team, Illumined Leadership Solutions and BennettWeston Consulting, to receive a $180,000 contract to serve as facilitator.
That recommendation died in silence, as no council members made a motion to move forward. The reasons were clear based upon an earlier council agenda briefing, broadcast online on March 7.
Council members S. Antanette Mosley, Sage Turner and Kim Roney all questioned how local contractors were overlooked or ranked lower in the process, including one, J.D. Ellison & Company, which does business on “The Block.”
“I’ll just go and throw it out there that I was a little disappointed that, given that we have applicants from the area, literally business owners who have places on ‘The Block,’ that we landed…where we have landed,” Mosley said during the March 7 briefing.
The formal Request for Proposals to do the work was issued in late 2023, and a selection committee including community members had worked several months to narrow applicants to three finalists based on a 280-point scale.
Illuminated Leadership Solutions and Bennet Weston Consulting scored highest, with 247 points, with J.D. Ellison & Company second at 228 points and Schenker Creative Co/Sankofa with 196 points.
According to city planning officials: 30 percent of the score was for qualifications; 30 percent for project understanding and approach; 25 percent was for relevant projects and references, and 15 percent was based on cost. Part of the qualifications score was related to local-area knowledge, but not residency.
Some council members said that at the very least “local-area knowledge” should have been given much heavier weight in the scoring.
Mosley said, “It doesn’t feel good knowing there is an opportunity to increase economic development in our community,” but the recommendation was for the Durham firm.
“There should be added points if you are a resident of the area,” Turner said during the March 7 teleconference. She also said she had concerns that the city was not meeting its economic development goals.
She was echoed by Roney. “I also have heard and shared similar concerns that the RFP (Request for Proposals) process is preventing us from contracting and getting resources into the local community.”
City Attorney Brad R. Branham cautioned council members about legal and constitutional hurdles to creating local preference in contracting, and told members that it might require starting from scratch with a new RFP process, which could add months to the timetable. If the council disregarded the old RFP process and selected a local vendor from the finalists, Branham said he would “need to have a converstation about what legal liability it exposes us to.”
Since the March 12 meeting, Asheville staff members have been considering options to recommend to the council, although the exact path is not expected to be decided for about two weeks, downtown projects manager Dana Frankel told 828newsNOW.com on Monday.
In the best case scenario, if it required issuing a new Request for Proposals, the earliest it could be completed is mid-June, Frankel said.
The $180,000 for “Boosting the Block” is part of a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project, including a reimagining of Pack Square following the removal of the Zebulon Vance Monument.
It’s meant to help make “a cohesive and truthful narrative” about the historic African-American community and Black-owned businesses that pre-dated the monument in the neighborhood.
At the March 7 agenda briefing, Roney said it raised bigger questions about the contracting process as a whole and whether local businesses are getting a fair chance. She said “The Block” project is so woven into conversations about local history, that she wanted to know why local firms could not score higher in the rankings.
“It’s the same kind of ‘Why?’ I ask every time I see a Dunkin’ Donuts at a city event instead of one of our local coffee shops,” Roney said.