Updated Wednesday – The Bethesda Urban Partnership (BUP) has selected a city administrator from Florida to take over once longtime executive director David Dabney retires later this summer.
Rick Ammirato, who has served as assistant city manager for Homestead, Florida, since 2014, will officially take over the role in early September, according to an announcement Tuesday.
BUP is a nonprofit with 35 full-time employees that handles management and marketing of downtown Bethesda. Its tasks include landscaping downtown medians, filling potholes, picking up trash and putting on the Taste of Bethesda—an annual event featuring samples from Bethesda restaurants that draws between 30,000 and 40,000 people to the Woodmont Triangle neighborhood.
Most of its funding comes from public parking fees in downtown Bethesda and some comes via additional taxes required of downtown Bethesda properties, similar to business improvement districts around the country. It has an annual budget of about $4 million.
Dabney, who announced his retirement plans last year, has been executive director of the organization since 1999, assuming the post five years after BUP was founded. Bethesda community leaders established BUP in 1994 to provide more focused and dedicated management of the 300-acre downtown Bethesda area.
The organization manages events, operates art studios and runs the recently expanded Bethesda Circulator shuttle service.
According to the announcement Tuesday, Dabney will transition into retirement early this fall.
Patrick O’Neill, immediate past chairman of the BUP board of directors, told Bethesda Beat Ammirato was brought on "to help a strong organization get even better" and pointed to his experience leading a business improvement district in White Plains, New York, a suburb of New York City with similar demographics to Bethesda.
Homestead, Florida, is a suburb of Miami with a population of just more than 60,000. Ammirato managed a $5.3 million renovation of a historic theater in Homestead and worked with the city manager to plan and execute an economic revitalization effort that included $52 million of public investment.
?Ammirato, 43, told Bethesda Beat on Tuesday Homestead’s revitalization includes a new city hall and police station.
Ammirato, a native of Westchester County in New York, previously served as the executive director of the Homestead Community Redevelopment Agency and executive director of the business improvement district in White Plains. He earned a graduate degree in communications from Georgetown University.
He came to Bethesda to interview for the job multiple times and said he was impressed to see the Washington region’s growth since his graduate school days.
“I was in D.C. a long time and to see the transformation of the area and how it’s spread out to Bethesda and into Montgomery County is amazing,” said Ammirato. “It was always a place I wanted to come back to. It’s also closer to home for me and my family.”
BUP operates the free Bethesda Circulator shuttle in downtown Bethesda, among other services and special events. Credit: Aaron Kraut
“[BUP] is an unbelievable organization. Its reputation is stellar. The level of service they provide is excellent,” Ammirato said. “It’s the kind of opportunity for someone like me who’s doing downtown management and public administration that doesn’t come by that often.”
The search to replace Dabney began last year. BUP hired firm Association Strategies to conduct the national search.
“Rick’s selection as the new executive director coincides with the board’s interest in promoting Bethesda to an even broader audience,” said BUP Chairwoman Elaine Joost, according to the press release. “His education, professional experience, and personal energy provide him with a skills set uniquely suited to fostering initiatives that will take Bethesda to the next level.”
