Gainesville City Commission approves $3.1 million 3-year contract for downtown Ambassador program

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their August 15 Regular Meeting, the Gainesville City Commission approved a three-year $3.1 million contract with Block by Block to administer a downtown Ambassador program.

Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area (GCRA) Director Rick Smith presented the program, which is part of the City’s Downtown Strategic Plan, to the Commission. The contract is for $3.1 million over three years, with an increase every year to provide salary increases to the Ambassadors, and two one-year renewals. The program was approved 4-3 by the Downtown Advisory Board on August 6 with the condition that GCRA will send out quarterly surveys to downtown stakeholders and businesses to gather feedback.

“National industry standard for Ambassador Programs”

Block by Block was identified by City staff as the “national industry standard for Ambassador Programs,” and the contract was pursued with a “sole source” solicitation process instead of the usual competitive process. A Notice of Intent to Purchase Sole/Single Source Ambassador Program Services was issued in April, giving other vendors seven days to respond with a proposal, but only one proposal was received, and it was determined to be non-responsive.

Block by Block has over 140 clients (including six in Florida: Miami DDA, Hollywood CRA, Jacksonville BID, Lincoln Road BID, Coconut Grove BID, and Coral Gables) and provides eight types of services including cleaning, parks and landscaping, safety and outreach, transit, and hospitality. 

The Ambassador Service Area is split into three zones, with the downtown zones divided by Main Street and a West University zone between the western downtown zone and SW 13th Street.

Services provided by Ambassadors

Smith said ambassadors will circulate continuously through the district and report suspicious activities, including helping to enforce the boundaries of the Arts, Culture, and Entertainment (ACE) district; engage with homeless people and connect them with service providers; provide safety escorts on request; report on incidents and persons of interest; clean up litter, weeds, graffiti, handbills, stickers, and trash receptacles in the downtown zones; provide greetings, directions, and recommendations on places to visit; and engage with downtown businesses.

Block by Block will “track the pathway of an individual Ambassador during the course of their day, to see who they interacted with, where they were walking.”

Wages will start at $20/hour for Safety and Cleaning Ambassadors, with Team Leaders and Coordinators making $23-$30/hour and an Operations Manager making $80,000/year. Only the Outreach Coordinator and Operations Manager positions are full-time jobs, with the hours of the others varying by season. Shifts are staggered throughout the day and evening; some shifts will begin at 7:30 a.m., and others will end at midnight. Ambassadors will receive initial and ongoing training.

Funding for the program

The program will be funded by the Downtown and College Park/University Heights Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds, with the funding going toward the services provided in each district.

Nearly all Ambassadors in Miami “were once part of the houseless community”

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut said it was a “wonderful program. I am very excited to see it come to fruition, and I think that the downtown merchants will be happy, as well. I was impressed with the hourly rate at $20 an hour; I think that’s a very good commitment to our community.” She asked whether they would be able to hire “the homeless – unhoused – if you’ve have any luck hiring the homeless.”

Smith said in Miami, “nearly all of their Ambassadors were once part of the houseless community.”

Derreck Hughes from Block by Block said the company’s approach “is about community first… We have a company culture that is second-chance driven.” He said he saw “a really high chance for coordination” with GRACE Marketplace, “so my plan would be to definitely tap into the resources in the community here and place them in jobs, where we can.”

Commissioner Reina Saco asked whether the cleaning services would be on top of the work now done by Public Works, and she was told it was “complementary rather than supplementary.” She said she was also excited about the safety component for “female employees who close up and are trying to find their way back to their car or home at 3 a.m… – it’s a little unnerving. So having that kind of opportunity for an escort… is a wonderful thing.” However, none of the shifts in the draft schedule went past midnight.

Saco asked how many people would be employed under the contract, and Smith said between seven and nine on any given day, with a mix of part-time and full-time employees. Smith also told her the company could start within two months of the contract being executed.

Eastman: “I became a real believer in it”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman said he was “really excited about it, as well.” He said he had some experience with the program in Miami “and got a much better idea of what this looks like on the ground… They were proud of the work they did. They wanted downtown to look nice… They had a feel for downtown in a way that – without our downtown unit that we had for GPD, which I think served that role, we haven’t had that in downtown for a little bit… So I became a real believer in it… and I think a lot of our downtown owners are going to see that as well.”

In response to a question from Commissioner Casey Willits, Smith said the City can end the contract with 10 days’ notice and no penalty. Willits also asked about liability, and Smith said the City is indemnified. 

More details on funding

Commissioner Ed Book asked Smith to say more about the funding because “we say we have financial issues and there’s $3 million we [spend], but we’re doing it because it’s strategic, and it also has specific requirements on the way we use those funds.”

Smith responded that the City has two different Tax Increment Financing funds, College Park/University Heights and the downtown district. There is about $600,000 in the downtown fund and about $2.4 million that’s unencumbered in the College Park/University Heights district. Smith said, “That’s a source of funds that has to be used geographically within this area. We can’t use it for closing budgetary gaps in the General Fund. We’re also using Downtown Strategic Plan funding, which is also geographically constrained but needs to be spent within the Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area.”

Smith continued, “Earlier this year, the City Commission recommended budgetary reallocations of funding to heighten our presence downtown, our investment downtown. We will be using that money to pay for the annual operating costs for Block by Block, as well as other things that we’re paying for within the budget.” He said there was also a rollover of about $4.6 million that can be used through FY29, and that is also geographically constrained. 

Downtown Advisory Board concerns

Book asked why the Downtown Advisory Board had been split, and Smith said a couple members thought the program was “too expensive for Gainesville, too big for Gainesville, and I don’t think it was fully spelled out to them that smaller communities than ours use this program.” He said other concerns were related to the limited remaining budget for GCRA, with funding that ends in FY29, and how to “weigh this against making tangible brick-and-mortar improvements” in decisions on how to use the remaining funds.

Book said he had “the same concern about cost” and “some concern about being a sole-source [contract],” although he recognized that not many other companies provide these services. He concluded, “The program, as structured, should be something that really benefits our city core; it looks like it’s going to do that.”

Mayor Harvey Ward reminded the commission that the City issued a Notice of Intent to Purchase “and we still only had one respondent.” Smith said, “It was put out in April for about five days, six days. There really are no providers in Florida… We understand, you know, it could be controversial to sole-source something of this magnitude, but they also are a demonstrated industry standard for this type of service for the last 35 years.”

Ward said he had reached out to smaller cities that have Ambassador programs, and they all used Block by Block and gave the company “rave reviews… It seems to work… What we’re hiring here is downtown specialists to fill… gaps. I think we will see tremendous success with this.”

Motion and vote

Chestnut made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation to award the contract to Block by Block for $3,119,422.22 for the initial three-year term, and Saco seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.