Few issues cause more concern for neighborhood residents than the construction of a major facility in their midst. Questions over parking, traffic congestion and noise invariably arise. Imagine the concern, though, when the new building down the street happens to be a 72,000-seat stadium along with a new exhibition center. Imagine, too, that the stadium is nestled between three economically fragile neighborhoods with no history of cooperation. Compounding the situation were over 30 other major construction projects scheduled for the area, including expansion of current facilities, new residential and retail construction, and major transportation improvements. First & Goal, the projects developer, hired PRR to work with the public to develop consensus, and to create a program to maintain the viability and integrity of the neighborhoods both during and after construction of the exhibition center.

Rather than try to sell the community on the benefits of the new stadium and exhibition center, PRR created opportunities for the community to realize benefits. We crafted a transparent process, allowing community members to have direct access in workshops with technical people conducting the EIS analysis, often acting as translator between community values and technical realities. Our research included transportation surveys of fans and businesses, and focus groups in the three impacted neighborhoods in two languages. We published a regular newsletter, Game Plan, to keep residents and business owners up-to-date, and produced a weekly memo to local elected officials to keep them informed. We facilitated input from residents and merchants through briefing sessions, public meetings, workshops, and caucuses. We developed a Neighborhood Action Agenda - a three-neighborhood mitigation strategy that included housing, economic development, transportation and community development concepts based on grass roots input. PRR established a new South Downtown Foundation to use mitigation funds to leverage community reinvestment.

As a direct result of PRR's strategy and execution, the Draft EIS received no appeals and the Final EIS had one appeal, which was later dropped. This allowed the project to proceed on schedule, without costly delays. Over five months, three very different neighborhoods came to consensus on a complex program of mitigation strategies to be implemented as a coordinated program, through the establishment of the South Downtown Foundation which was conceived and set up under PRR's leadership. That organization was able to leverage its original mitigation fund of $6.1 million to obtain $135 million in matching funds for neighborhood investments in housing, economic development, business assistance, public safety, and public spaces.