St. Johns County Leverages ArcGIS Solutions to Manage Capital Improvement Projects

The St. Johns County Public Works Department aims to maintain, preserve, and protect the county's infrastructure resources. With the county's population increasing by over 44 percent in 10 years, achieving and exceeding our goal requires constant innovation of solutions, many of which involve using ArcGIS Enterprise as the foundational software system. This article will illustrate how the department leverages ArcGIS as a platform to manage infrastructure development effectively and maintain a high standard of living for county residents.

St. Johns County is in northeast Florida, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the St. Johns River. Highlights of the county include the historical tourist destination of St. Augustine; extensive suburban, beachfront, and agricultural areas; and a highly rated public school system. The population, estimated at 306,000 people, increased by 44 percent between 2010 and 2020 and is projected to grow further. Because of the variety of landscapes and significant population increase, finding a way to manage capital improvement projects efficiently is a priority for the St. Johns County Public Works Department. The department maintains over 1,153 miles of roadway, 611 miles of sidewalks, and 266.3 miles of drainage pipes. With an increasing population, developing and maintaining assets requires constant innovation of solutions, many of which involve using ArcGIS Enterprise.

St. Johns County's capital improvement program (CIP) focuses on maintaining capital assets and completing minor and major capital improvements. The program encompasses improvement plans to drainage, parks, facilities, and transportation. Previously, a legacy application was used to track project details and current status, while a monthly PDF report was manually generated and shared among stakeholders. The inherent flaws of this system included static information and a lack of spatial reference for projects. The department wanted to address these issues by enhancing the workflow process. The goal was to provide a solution allowing project managers to update information and facilitate communication with other staff members.

The first challenge was to provide a mechanism for project managers to update data quickly and intuitively with minimal reliance on geographic information system (GIS) staff. The second challenge was to make basic project information dynamic and readily accessible to other staff members without contacting project managers directly.

The county's public works GIS/IT team saw opportunities to incorporate spatial information through interactive, dynamic dashboards with key performance indicators and links to other project tracking tools. The Capital Project Tracking solution provided the basis for a more efficient CIP workflow process. The Capital Improvement Project Plans web app was implemented so that staff could edit basic project information. Project managers can comment on the current status and attach pictures and files. The Capital Improvement Plan dashboard was implemented to showcase projects dynamically and engage upper-level management.

Instead of depending on constant communication from project managers, the county administrator's team can review the dashboard to see the locations, basic information, and recent comments about project status. The updates are immediately available to anyone with view permissions. The dashboard facilitates a transparent and efficient exchange of information and is heavily used by county staff daily. The public works GIS/IT team also incorporated an insights report to provide additional project tracking and analysis resources.

The applications for each division of public works became too numerous to organize via links, bookmarks, and emails. Considering the CIP tools offered, it was clear the department needed a way to manage all the applications easily and in a user-friendly way. The chosen solution would leverage the power of ArcGIS Hub. The CIP Geo Hub was created, providing internal users direct access to applications, statistics, and key performance indicators.

After developing the Capital Improvement Plan dashboard for organizational use, county leadership requested a similar setup for public use. The objective of the publicly available dashboard is to increase government transparency and provide a platform to inform residents of local projects. The public dashboard is a copy of the internal Capital Improvement Plan dashboard; includes infographics and dynamic statistics; and, like the dashboard for internal use, utilizes filters, project identifications, and mapping navigations to create an interactive user experience. 

The successful implementation of ArcGIS Solutions has drastically increased the efficiency of managing capital improvement projects in St. Johns County compared to the previous workflow. The solution has empowered project managers to take ownership of the data and perform basic editing instead of needing to rely on GIS staff. The combination of web apps, dashboards, and the hub site allows project managers to easily update project information and communicate with upper management.

Using the internal dashboard has helped facilitate monthly CIP meetings, reducing the time required from several hours to an hour or less. Data that was once static and potentially outdated is now dynamic and accessible, providing real-time updates as changes are made. Increased transparency for the public is another benefit of this solution. Plans for further improvements include action items for each project and automated updates to track project expenditures.