Charlottesville, VA – The Board of Botanical Garden of the Piedmont has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for qualified firms to submit plans and bids for the design of the botanical garden in Charlottesville’s McIntire Park.

The botanical garden is included in the park’s Schematic Master Plan approved by City Council.  It will be located on 8.5 acres in the northeastern section of the park, near the intersection of the John W. Warner Parkway and Melbourne Road.

“Announcing the RFP is a critical milestone for bringing the garden to Central Virginia,” commented the Garden Board President Dorothy Tompkins.  “A very important step in creating this RFP was reaching out to the executive directors of Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond and Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna,” Tompkins noted. “They reviewed our RFP and offered invaluable input.”

the Garden’s RFP Committee includes two landscape architects and a Virginia certified landscape designer who also serve on the the Garden Board. Other members are the director of Charlottesville’s Parks and Recreation Department, several business leaders experienced in procurement, the founder of the botanical garden initiative, and two current and previous the Garden Board members.

To announce the bid opportunity, the RFP Committee emailed the announcement in October to a master list of known landscape architecture firms in Virginia. It also enlisted the American Society of Landscape Architects and its Virginia Chapter to notify firms. Interested vendors must attend a pre-proposal meeting Nov. 16, which will include a walk-through of the garden site and a question/answer session. The RFP is divided into three distinct phases, and prospective vendors will have to propose plans, a timeline, and budget for each phase. Proposals are due by 2 p.m. on Jan. 15, 2018. Details are available here.