In 2001 the Board of the Nashville Downtown Partnership asked Steve Gibson of Urban Place Consulting Group to take over management of the Partnership on an interim basis to turn around the organization and improve its effectiveness as a downtown leadership and management organization. Although there were many issues facing the Partnership and downtown, the one with the highest priority was parking.

Urban Place developed a strategy to improve the parking situation that consisted of three implementation areas: 1) Lower the cost and availability of parking for office tenants;

2) Provide more on-street parking to support the retail businesses;
3) Improve the management and profitability of the City owned parking resources while at the same time improving the user experience in the parking garages.
As part of the development of this third piece, Urban Place contracted with Andy Miller, AICP to help with the management & operations analysis and the development of an implementation strategy.

Operating under the new management model developed by Steve and Andy, the Partnership began operations of the Metro parking system on January 1, 2003. The results of the first year of operation were additional net revenue of over $500,000 without raising rates. Expenses were reduced and usage increased dramatically because of a more positive parking experience.