Engineering & Project Management

​
Project management process​

How General Services projects are selected, designed and built​

General Services serves as the project manager for many of the City’s infrastructure projects. Our staff works closely with other City departments such as the Charlotte Department of Transportation (CDOT), Planning, Design & Development and Housing & Neighborhood Services to select and rank their project lists. ​These lists are submitted to other City departments, the Office of Strategy & Budget and the City Manager’s Office for approval. Once City Council approves the priority projects, initial funding needs are estimated and included in a bond referendum. When voters approve the bonds, General Services selects a design consultant and begins a multi-phase process for designing and building a project.​​​​​ ​​Learn more about project phases.

Transportation project management

City Council is currently reviewing the Urban Street Design Guidelines (USDG) and its impact on the public input process. The USDG are intended to create "complete" streets that provide capacity and mobility for motorists while also being safer and more comfortable for pedestrians, cyclists and neighborhood residents.

 
If City Council approves the USDG as a policy, then City staff will begin reviewing more than the primary project details. For example, instead of simply looking at an intersection and the need for a left turn lane, City staff and the design consultant would work with citizens to study the entire project area, looking at the community as a whole to determine what should be included in the project scope. 

​Neighborhood project management

​City staff from Housing & Neighborhood Services, Planning, Design & Development, the Charlotte Department of Transportation, Office of Strategy & Budget and General Services collaborate to identify neighborhoods that will benefit from infrastructure improvements. After this list is compiled, Housing & Neighborhood Services ranks these projects in the order they should be completed and submits the list to the Office of Strategy & Budget and the City Manager's Office for approval.
 
Once City Council approves the priority projects, initial funding needs are estimated and included in a bond referendum. When voters approve the bonds, General Services selects a design consultant and begins the five-phase process for designing and building the project. ​​