Greensboro, North Carolina
Client: City of Greensboro
ETM Associates was part of the team led by Agency Landscape + Planning to prepare a parks and recreation master plan for the City of Greensboro. ETM was tasked with developing the Parks and Recreation Maintenance Management Plan (MMP) as a companion piece to the larger plan. For the MMP, ETM completed a thorough assessment of current operations and maintenance, including organizational structure, staff (skills, responsibilities, turnover/retirement), special event impacts, and a SWOT analysis. Comparable cities were benchmarked, and current partnerships were examined for how they can be renewed and expanded to support the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department (GPRD). The research and analysis culminated in recommendations and a maintenance plan that reflected rounds of input from city staff. It identified broad goals and focused objectives to accomplish in the short-, mid-, and long-term. ETM also estimated maintenance costs for existing and proposed park landscapes/elements to help GPRD better budget for implementing recommendations made in the master plan.
A key recommendation of the MMP was a complete geographic reorganization of the existing park maintenance districts to improve efficiency and better serve the citizens of Greensboro. A vital aspect of the reorganization was arranging around major roadways that acted as barriers for maintenance staff and delivery of services. ETM created four new maintenance districts with dedicated staff for each district to help reduce travel time and applied resources proportionally to district needs, rather than with a blanket approach across the city. The reorganization was accomplished using existing staff with planned future staff increases to meet higher maintenance standards.
The complete master plan report can be found on Greensboro’s website.
