The City of Rochester and Monroe County, New York are seeking proposals from qualified Respondents to create an arts and culture plan for Rochester and Monroe County. Upon award, the Consultant or team of Consultants will conduct research, complete an arts and culture inventory, gather widespread community and stakeholder input, and develop a vision, goals, and an implementation plan to achieve the vision and goals for the City and County. Additionally, the Consultant(s) will create a Public Art Master Plan for the City.

The county has a robust arts and culture ecosystem, with most of the largest institutions and the highest concentration of related resources located in the city of Rochester. Accordingly, the Arts and Culture Plan will have a strong focus on the city.

Due to the unique and complex nature of an arts and culture plan, the ideal Consultant(s) would have a diverse staff and experience with:

• developing arts and culture plans, public art master plans, and/or other community plans;
• robust and creative community engagement, especially with artists;
• encouraging collaboration between municipalities and non-profit arts organizations;
• racially and ethnically diverse communities with significant challenges related to poverty;
• high quality graphic design for documents, websites, and other project materials; and
• best practices in other communities.

View the materials below:

• Request for Proposals
• Attachment A: Arts + Culture Section of Rochester 2034
• Attachment B: Meet on Main: Review of Five Cities Report
• Attachment C: City of Rochester’s Standard PSA Template

Virtual Pre-Proposal Conference

The City will be holding a Pre-Proposal Conference on Wednesday, August 2, 2023 at 11:00 am EST to provide an overview of the RFP and to answer questions from potential respondents. The meeting will be recorded and made available on this webpage. Register for the Pre-Proposal Conference here:

https://cityofrochester.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqfuGpqD0tGtUbHrT5xU1US2iEW7Eg5kby

Deadline for questions

To ensure that all Respondents have a clear understanding of the scope and requirements of this RFP, the City and, if applicable, the County will respond to all questions submitted via e-mail to the Project Manager, Heather Anderson, AICP at Heather.Anderson@CityofRochester.Gov by 11:59 pm EST Friday, August 25, 2023. Questions and the responding answers will be sent via e-mail to all Respondents who have provided an e-mail address to Heather Anderson (email address above) and will be posted on this webpage.

Submission Deadline

Proposals must be received in PDF format by the City no later than 11:59 pm EST on Tuesday, September 12, 2023. Respondents may attach their Proposal file/s to the email submission or include a link to a file sharing platform if files are too large for email attachments. Email submittals should be directed to Heather Anderson, AICP at Heather.Anderson@CityofRochester.Gov .