Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc.
Downtown Bethesda, a thriving destination home to numerous restaurants, retailers, arts organizations and community events, is managed by the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. (BUP), a non-profit organization established by Montgomery County in 1994. Bethesda Urban Partnership handles landscaping and maintenance as well as promotion of the downtown through innovative marketing campaigns and large-scale events. In its 12-year operation, BUP created Bethesda Transportation Solutions in 2000, established the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District in 2002 and has grown from employing two full-time staff to housing more than 35 employees working in maintenance, marketing, transportation, customer service and administration. BUP is evaluated every five years by Montgomery County and has been reauthorized twice by the County’s Office of Legislative Oversight to continue its mission of maintaining and marketing downtown Bethesda.

Bethesda Urban Partnership 2007-2008 Annual Review

Maintenance
Tree-lined streets, attractive streetscape and beautiful flowers are a signature of Bethesda’s vibrant community. Bethesda’s walkable downtown is managed by a dedicated maintenance team who is hard at work six days a week keeping Bethesda a clean and attractive place to live, work and visit. Beginning at 7am Monday through Saturday, BUP’s landscaping and urban beautification squads are out sweeping the streets, removing litter three times daily, planting 32,000 flowers in three annual rotations, trimming 1,200 trees, maintaining 188,000 square feet of turf and powerwashing Bethesda’s signature brick sidewalks. BUP’s maintenance team also offers support at downtown Bethesda’s large-scale events such as Taste of Bethesda and the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival.

Additionally, BUP's Ask Me Team assists guests, fields questions about the community, provides motorist assistance and offers first aid and quick response in emergency situations during afternoons and weekends Wednesday through Sunday.

Marketing
BUP’s marketing and communications team creates year-round community events, produces free guides that detail Bethesda’s restaurant, retail, home fashion and arts organizations and operates downtown Bethesda’s Web site, www.bethesda.org. The efforts of BUP’s marketing team target downtown Bethesda’s residents, tourists, visitors and employees. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is also managed by BUP’s marketing team.

BUP's marketing team is the producer of the Bethesda Literary Festival, Imagination Bethesda, Taste of Bethesda, a free Summer Concert Series, Winter Wonderland and Bethesda Outdoor Movies: Stars on the Avenue.

Additionally, BUP’s marketing team also produces free guides and brochures that are distributed at large-scale festivals, at Bethesda Urban Partnership’s three information kiosks, via BUP’s mailing list and Web site, at local businesses and through building and hotel concierges. Each guide includes a map of downtown Bethesda featuring parking options.

Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District
The state of Maryland designated downtown Bethesda as an Arts & Entertainment District effective July 1, 2002. Special tax incentives are in place that will benefit artists, arts enterprises and developers that are located within the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District. Arts initiatives are implemented throughout the year by BUP's marketing team to benefit local artists, arts organizations, downtown Bethesda businesses, as well as visitors, residents and guests.

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is the producer of the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, the Bethesda Painting Awards, the Bethesda Art Walk, the Bethesda Artist Market, Dance Bethesda and Play In A Day.

Bethesda Transportation Solutions (BTS)
Bethesda Transportation Solutions helps manage the traffic in downtown Bethesda by marketing local, state and federal commuter benefits programs and tax incentives to employers. BTS promotes alternative transportation such as rail, bus, carpools and biking with the goal of reducing the number of Bethesda employees who drive alone to work.

Operation & Funding
The Bethesda Urban Partnership is operated by an 11-member Board of Directors comprised of residents, businesses and developers appointed by the County Executive. BUP is funded mainly by revenue generated from the Bethesda Parking Lot District fees, in addition to the commercial Urban District property tax. Private sponsors also partner with BUP on large-scale community events such as Taste of Bethesda.

Downtown Bethesda
Bethesda, one of the most renowned communities in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, is known as a destination for diverse restaurants, sophisticated home fashion retailers, contemporary art galleries and celebrated live theatre. Additionally, downtown Bethesda is located adjacent to the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine and the National Naval Medical Center, making it one of the world's leading biomedical research centers.

Bethesda boasts a population of more than 55,000 residents and a downtown workforce exceeding 43,000 employees. One of the nation’s most affluent and educated communities, Bethesda’s average household income is $99,102 and the median housing value is nearly $400,000. Seventy nine percent of the population hold college degrees, and 49 percent hold graduate or professional degrees. (Figures are from data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000.)