Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: Proactively Engaging the Community During High-Profile Water Construction Projects

Background: KC Water is Kansas City, Missouri's Water Services Department, serving over 650,000 residents. KC Water contracted with a firm to lead communications and business engagement for a major water, sewer, and storm sewer upgrades project - spanning nearly four miles along a heavily traveled corridor in the heart of Kansas City, MO (KCMO). This project caused daily disruptions to over 200 businesses, more than a dozen neighborhood groups, drivers, residents and the general public. The consultant branded the project Upgrades on Main. The Upgrades on Main project replaced century-old infrastructure and paved the way for the first phase of construction-related activity for the KC Streetcar Main Street Extension. KC Water replaced approximately 23,227 linear feet of water mains and 17,532 linear feet of sewer mains, installed 67 new fire hydrants, 70 new manholes and new water services for 135 locations. This project took over two years to complete, with construction taking place on a highly-trafficked corridor. The team proposed and executed a very proactive approach, focusing on 'early and often' communications with more than 200 businesses and residents along the corridor. Planning: We determined three primary goals for this project: Inform the public/stakeholders of construction impacts and educate them about the project process from beginning to end. Manage expectations and mitigate issues raised by the public/stakeholders. Provide a high level of customer service to stakeholders along the Main Street corridor. Our team then created 11 primary strategies to meet our goals. Each strategy included an objective that detailed how we would get the work done. Implementation: The team performed the following tasks throughout the two-year project to ensure the public was as informed as possible about construction in their area: 48-hour notice for any water shut offs via calls, emails and door hangers. Met on-site directly with stakeholders with contractors to coordinate phasing of work, delivery schedules, garbage truck schedules, etc. to limit the impact as much as possible. Created and sent detour maps emailed directly to impacted stakeholders that could be forwarded to customers/residents. Created 'Businesses Open During Construction' signage that was placed throughout the project corridor in order to support businesses during the construction period. Facilitated a 'bus tour' halfway through the project for city officials, business owners, and other key stakeholders to share the 'behind the scenes' aspects of the project and communicate the high-level of coordination taking place Captured drone footage to create photos and videos showing what progress had been made across the corridor. Managed a project hotline phone & email that was a direct line for the public to our project team. The consultant maintained a list of all foreman working across the corridor so when an issue did pop up, we were able to offer a high-level of service and fix the issue quickly. Attended weekly calls with all contractors working on the corridor Handled media requests, including meeting media on the corridor Launched a 'Drive Safe on Main' campaign - videos, graphics and social media campaign encouraging drivers to slow down on Main by highlighting some of the workers who are constructing the new infrastructure Created and maintained an interactive map Created progress graphics Regularly attended community/business/neighborhood meetings to provide updates on the project and answer questions. Planned a 'Community-Completion Event ' that celebrated the end of work with family-friendly activities and a short program featuring the Mayor, City Manager, city council members, KC Water and local business leaders.Through sponsorships P+A raised over $8,500 for the event to: Purchase $2,000 in gift cards from local businesses along the corridor Provide food and drinks from local businesses along the corridor Book activities and games such as a dunk tank, face painter and bubble artist Create signage showing all of the successes Go door to door to every business on Main Street to personally hand out invitations Evaluation: While there were still frustrations that come with the nature of construction, qualitative findings indicate that those impacted were pleased with the level and quality of communications provided throughout Upgrades on Main The Weekly Construction Update email list started at zero and by the project conclusion grew to 693 subscribers The team produced 92 Weekly Construction email updates with an average open rate of 45 percent (23 percent higher than the average email open rate for construction industries according to MailChimp) Team facilitated 15 media interviews throughout the life of the project Tehosted three virtual public meetings, totaling 124 attendees Team presented project progress/updates to 18 different neighborhood/business groups - some groups more than once Staff attended 95 weeks of a weekly coordination call with as many as 20 different contractors throughout the life of the project The team coordinated at least 40 different water shut-offs with business owners and residents (including phone calls, emails, and door hangers for each individual shut) An estimated 80-100 community people attend our community-completion event. The mayor of KCMO, city manager, and 2 City Council representatives attended the event and made remarks.