Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency in Tallahassee, Florida

Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency is the joint City of Tallahassee and Leon County agency that turns a penny of the local sales tax into roads, greenways, parks and drainage works. In its own words on the What is Blueprint page, the agency is a City-County agency established to implement an ambitious plan funded by a local government one-cent sales surtax. Tallahassee-Leon County voters approved the surtax in 2000 and again in 2014, which is why older signs, meeting listings and project plaques around town still say Blueprint 2000 while the current project list is called Blueprint 2020.

The money is split by formula. Blueprint Infrastructure receives 66% of the surtax, the Office of Economic Vitality receives 12%, the City of Tallahassee and Leon County each take 10% for their own capital needs, and a further 2% goes to Leon County for the Livable Infrastructure for All program, known as LIFE. Because the tax is collected on purchases across all of Leon County, shoppers on Apalachee Parkway, in Midtown and at the stores along North Monroe Street all feed the same pot, whether they live inside the city limits or out in Woodville.

The agency keeps a running scoreboard on its home page. As of October 2026 it reports more than $777 million invested in infrastructure projects since 2000, 13 miles of trails constructed, 10 new parks, 1,462 acres of public park space and protected land opened, $405.7 million leveraged in outside funding and $135 million being invested in water-quality projects. The office sits downtown at 315 S. Calhoun Street, a few blocks from the Capitol.

No separate election produces the Blueprint board. The Intergovernmental Agency Board, or IA Board, is the Tallahassee City Commission and the Leon County Commission sitting as one body, 12 elected officials in all, and it directs both Blueprint and the Office of Economic Vitality. Day to day, both divisions are run by the Intergovernmental Management Team, which is the County Administrator and the City Manager. A Citizens Advisory Committee and a Technical Coordinating Committee review projects before they reach the board, and the agency was recruiting three new Citizens Advisory Committee members in October 2026.

On the city side, the City Commission page lists Mayor John E. Dailey in Seat 4, Mayor Pro Tem Curtis Richardson in Seat 2, Commissioner Jacqueline Jack Porter in Seat 1, Commissioner Jeremy Matlow in Seat 3 and Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox in Seat 5, with Karen Jumonville as City Manager. Those five, plus the seven Leon County commissioners, make up the IA Board. The city also lists Blueprint 2000 among the meeting schedules it publishes through BoardDocs, alongside the City Commission and the Community Redevelopment Agency. Last verified: October 9, 2026, on the City of Tallahassee website.

The arrangement matters because city and county members represent different electorates. A commissioner elected from the unincorporated northeast and a city commissioner elected citywide get the same single vote on a project in Frenchtown or on the Southside, and in June 2026 the Tallahassee Democrat reported board members questioning whether Blueprint money was being spread fairly across different parts of the county.

The best known Blueprint work is the Capital Cascades Trail, a stormwater and recreation corridor that the agency describes as physically distinct segments stretching across 4.25 miles of downtown Tallahassee. Segment 1 rebuilt Franklin Boulevard from West Tennessee Street to Lafayette Street, replacing an open ditch with a buried 8 by 12 foot box culvert, and was finished in 2014. Segment 2 is Cascades Park, completed in 2015 on a remediated brownfield south of Franklin Boulevard. A pedestrian bridge carrying the trail from South Gadsden Street over South Monroe Street to Adams Street opened in 2016.

Cascades Park is the clearest example of why the sales tax went to drainage first. The agency's Cascades Park page says it was constructed by Blueprint 2000 in partnership with the City of Tallahassee and Leon County and calls it a stormwater facility that doubles as an urban park, designed to flood so nearby areas get relief in big storms. The amphitheater, the Prime Meridian marker plaza and the Smokey Hollow Commemoration sit on ground that also holds water.

Segment 3, usually called the FAMU Way corridor, built a new east-west road from South Monroe Street to Lake Bradford Road, about 1.5 miles, linking FAMU with Gaines Street, College Town and Florida State University. Segment 3 was completed in 2024. Along the way it added Coal Chute Pond near Railroad Square, the History and Culture Trail made with the Council on Culture and Art, and a skateable art park whose rattlesnake run honors the FAMU Rattlers. Blueprint states the snake run feature stretches roughly 225 feet, making it the longest snake run in Florida. A trailhead at the Regional Stormwater Facility ties the Cascades Trail to the St. Marks Historic Rail Trail.

The drainage logic runs all the way south. Blueprint explains that the Central Drainage Ditch carries runoff from downtown, Frenchtown and the main FSU campus to Lake Henrietta and Munson Slough and on to Lake Munson, which connects to the aquifer and Wakulla Springs. Segment 4, still to come, will follow that ditch south of Orange Avenue toward Munson Slough, with stormwater treatment and greenway links for the Southside.

The most contested Blueprint votes were not about roads. On February 24, 2022, WFSU reported that the agency board voted to allocate $20 million to Florida State University for repairs to Doak Campbell Stadium. The vote passed 7-5, with City Commissioners Jeremy Matlow and Jack Porter and County Commissioners Kristin Dozier, Rick Minor and Brian Welch voting no. Thirty-seven members of the public spoke, only six of them in favor, and the meeting ran from 3 p.m. to after 7:30 p.m.

The same report notes that Blueprint economic development money had already gone to the other two public colleges in Tallahassee: Florida A&M University received $10 million for Bragg Stadium repairs and Tallahassee Community College received $1 million for its athletic facilities. FAMU later honored the board members behind its share; the university describes the award as the Agency’s $10 million grant to help finance repairs and upgrade for Bragg Memorial Stadium. After the Doak Campbell vote, Commissioner Dozier told WFSU that if one issue pushed her to seriously consider a run for mayor, it was Doak.

Construction is heavy right now. WTXL reported at the end of 2025 that 16 Blueprint projects would be under construction in 2026, four of them in northeast Tallahassee: Market District Placemaking, the Northeast Park on Centerville Road, the Northeast Gateway at Welaunee and the Bannerman Road widening. The station reported that the Market District park is due in 2027, the Northeast Park by summer 2027, and that Bannerman Road was still in land acquisition with major road work starting in 2027.

Cost is the argument. At a June 11, 2026 budget workshop, the Tallahassee Democrat reported, the 12 commissioners on the board approved a $70 million budget for the coming fiscal year, $31.4 million of it for infrastructure and $4.6 million for Office of Economic Vitality projects. The same story laid out how three projects have grown. The Airport Gateway, approved in 2018 to improve Springhill Road and build a new route through the FSU southwest campus and Innovation Park, went from an initial estimate of $58,698,138 to $138.6 million in 2026. Northeast Gateway: Welaunee Boulevard rose from $77,990,000 to $202.3 million, and the Bannerman Road connector from $33.3 million to $164.7 million.

The Democrat reported that the three projects together have grown by a combined $335 million from their initial cost estimates. Blueprint Director Autumn Calder told the board that the final cost of a project is not settled until the ribbon is cut, with fuel, supplies, land and bids all moving the number. Leon County Commissioner Brian Welch pointed out that $30 million earmarked for the North Florida Fairgrounds was on hold, and no further votes were taken that day.

The Blueprint 2020 list has 27 infrastructure projects, and reading it is the quickest way to see where the penny is headed across Tallahassee. Road and gateway work includes the Airport Gateway on Springhill Road and Lake Bradford Road, Capital Circle Southwest, the Northwest Connector widening of Tharpe Street, the Westside Student Corridor widening of Pensacola Street, the Orange Avenue widening from Adams Street to Springhill Road, and the Southside Gateway on Woodville Highway. Placemaking projects cover College Avenue, Midtown, the Monroe-Adams corridor, North Monroe and Orange Avenue at Meridian Road, the last tied to a planned StarMetro transit center.

Parks and water make up the rest: the Lake Lafayette and St. Marks Regional Linear Park, a Greenways Master Plan, the Northeast Park, water quality and stormwater improvements, an alternative sewer study, fairgrounds improvements and the Tallahassee-Leon County Animal Service Center. The list also carries a DeSoto Winter Encampment project, so not every line item is pavement or pipe.