Barth Associates, LLC was founded to help communities “harness the power” of their parks and recreation system to become more resilient and sustainable. A parks and recreation system can comprise as much as 50% of a city’s land mass, and a well-planned, designed, programmed and maintained system can generate numerous economic, social and environmental benefits for the community.
Our firm is driven by 7 Core Values:
- Responsive Service – We do whatever it takes to meet your needs. We respond quickly to your phone calls and e-mails, conduct regular status meetings or conference calls, and deliver interim and final products on-time and within-budget.
- Customized Approach – Every community has different needs and issues. Prior to every project we conduct a “Scoping Workshop” – at no cost to our clients – to review our proposed approach, discuss alternatives, and revise the scope, schedule and fees as necessary to meet your specific needs.
- Collaborative Relationships – Our most successful projects leverage the skills, expertise, and experience of the entire team, including both public and private agency staff.
- Research-Based Practice – Parks and Recreation Planning is constantly changing in response to urbanization, aging, diversity, sustainability, resiliency, and other issues. Our work is informed by the latest research from both industry and academia, including our own research at the University of Florida and Georgia Tech.
- Community Outreach – The successful implementation of any plan relies heavily on public involvement and support. We excel at engaging your elected officials, staff, advisory committee(s), stakeholders, and residents in the planning process. Our ‘toolkit” includes interviews, focus groups, workshops, surveys, interactive web sites, social media and other techniques to reach as many people as possible.
- Compelling Products – We produce high quality, compelling reports, presentations, graphics, brochures, web sites and/or other tools to allow you to communicate your message and vision, whether for accreditation, funding, awards or other purposes.
- Focus on Implementation – At the ‘end of the day’, the purpose of the Master Plan is to move broad initiatives and/or policies forward towards implementation. We address implementation from the very beginning of the project, including funding, policies, staffing, programming, operations, and maintenance. One of the highlights of our planning process is our Implementation Workshop, engaging senior staff from administration, finance, planning, public works, and parks and recreation, and/or other departments to forge a realistic, phased implementation strategy based on community priorities and projected funding.
Our services include:
• Facilitation
• Strategic planning
• Parks and recreation system planning
• Park master planning
• Greenway and trail master planning
• Natural resource management planning
• Implementation planning
• Public involvement