Visit Amarillo / Proposal
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Website Redesign Proposal · Amarillo, Texas

Step into
the real Texas, properly.

A rebuild of visitamarillo.com — architecture, design system, migration and integrations — prepared for Visit Amarillo by Sueño and Co.

PREPARED FOR
Visit Amarillo
PREPARED BY
Sueño and Co.
CONTACT
Aaron Soto
START
October 1, 2026
LAUNCH
No later than June 30, 2027
01

Executive
Summary

Amarillo has a story most destination websites don't get to tell — big skies, real ranching heritage, a downtown that's genuinely coming back to life. "Step Into the Real Texas" is a strong promise. Right now, the content delivers but the platform is holding you back.

Our approach pairs a modern, mobile-first rebuild with a content strategy built for how people actually search today — including the AI tools increasingly standing in for a Google search. The goal is a site that's authoritative for travelers, easy for your team to run day to day, and unmistakably Amarillo.

The plan
4
Phases
Start to launch
9
Months, Oct 26 – Jun 27
02

Company
Overview
& Team

Sueño and Co. has assembled a three-person team around what this project actually requires: brand and UX work that can carry a "Real Texas" identity without leaning on cliché, a content and platform strategy built for a large public-facing content library, and development that can make several third-party integrations behave.

Aaron Soto
Lead · Design/UX · Project Manager

Aaron Soto leads the team and is the primary point of contact. Born and raised in Amarillo, he spent about two years in Portland working at marketing agencies before coming back. He's been in the field since 2016, going on ten years, and is committed to this project starting October 1, 2026. His office is a six-minute walk from yours; if something needs an in-person conversation, that's never more than a short walk away.

Kristine Neil
Content Strategy · IA · Governance

25+ years designing websites, 14 of them working specifically on Squarespace. She's run Kristine Neil Studio since 2019, and before that founded and served as creative director of a multi-disciplinary design studio, including work with nonprofits in the political space. Her work concentrates on nonprofit and mission-driven organizations that have large content footprints and layered audiences. Available beginning October 1, 2026.

Will Myers
Development · Integrations

Will has 15+ years of experience building and integrating websites, with day-to-day work spanning APIs, custom integrations, accessibility, and performance. He’s also a product builder and business owner, creating web tools used by thousands of designers and developers. He brings a practical, entrepreneurial mindset to projects and has worked with Aaron and Kristine as part of a collaborative team. Available beginning October 1, 2026.

All core project work — content strategy, design, development, and integration — stays with the three of us throughout, with no client-facing subcontractors on this engagement. We occasionally bring in trusted support help for QA passes, file organization, and other administrative tasks that don't require project judgment or client contact; that support never touches core deliverables or decisions.

Between us, we've worked on hundreds of website projects with the same kind of content complexity and third-party dependencies this project has. The case studies that follow speak to that experience directly.

03

Case
Studies

Reston Museum

Funded in part by Visit Virginia
Scope
Full website redesign to translate Reston Museum’s refreshed brand into a modern, accessible experience, with new virtual exhibit pages, an events calendar, and an online shop.
Platform
Squarespace
Our role
Creative lead, website design, wireframes, information architecture, and web strategy, in partnership with Mission Partners (communications and copywriting)
Integrations
Bloomerang (donor and membership management)
Launched
June 2024
Result
Site visits are up 73% year over year, with total traffic reaching 133K visits.
Reference
Carrie Fox, Founder & CEO, Mission Partners · carrie.fox@mission.partners · restonmuseum.org

Explore Washington Park

Travel Oregon grant funding
Scope
Full website build to help visitors plan trips to Portland’s 410-acre Washington Park, with an interactive trip planner, transit and parking tools, live shuttle tracker, and accessibility built in from the start.
Platform
Squarespace
Our role
Creative lead and project lead, coordinating a specialist team (custom components, design systems, accessibility consulting, event platform build)
Integrations
Eventually (event calendar and registration), TriMet transit data, Weglot (5-language translation), custom parking availability monitor
Launched
July 2026
Result
Built to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards, put real-time trip-planning and parking data front and center, and give the EWP team full ownership of updates — the site earned Oregon Business coverage at launch, with Travel Oregon praising its accessibility and inclusion.
Reference
Meghan McCloskey, EWP Marketing & Comms Director · meghan@explorewashingtonpark.org · explorewashingtonpark.org

Crush Wine Bar and Grill

Downtown Amarillo
Scope
Full website redesign to capture the downtown Amarillo feel and the restaurant's atmosphere, with updated, dish-forward menus and an interactive, modern site experience.
Platform
Squarespace
Our role
Creative lead, website design and implementation
Integrations
Toast (online reservations and ordering)
Launched
March 2026
Result
Built to make upcoming events easy to find, put the menu front and center, and improve search visibility — pageviews are up 18% year-to-date, with mobile driving the large majority of traffic.
Reference
Seth Quinn, Owner · seth@crushamarillo.com · crushamarillo.com
04

Beyond the brief.

A few things surfaced while preparing this proposal that the RFP doesn't ask for directly, but seem worth building in from the start.

01

A tech-stack audit

Snapsea arrived with more functionality than you needed, and Visit Widget alone covers your chatbot, app, Boots & Brews, and an underused itinerary planner. We'll scope a short audit in Phase 1, alongside the content audit, flagging what's redundant or worth retiring — no extra cost or timeline.

02

Multilingual at launch

Real search demand already exists in German, Spanish, and more. We're building Weglot in from day one — implementation included, subscription itemized in Section 8.

03

Chatbot data as strategy

The chatbot you launched this year is already logging what visitors actually want to know. We'll use that directly to shape the new site's content and navigation, not let it go to waste.

04

Faster, cheaper changes

The current CMS makes minor edits slow and expensive. We'll build this so your team can make most changes themselves, without needing us for everything.

05

Process &
Methodology

This project will run in four milestones, each with a defined output and a review point before the next phase begins. This keeps decisions visible and prevents rework late in the project. Alongside those phase checkpoints, we'll set up a standing recurring meeting — typically bi-monthly — for status updates, open questions, and collaboration for most of the project timeline. Open, ongoing communication is an important value to us, not something that only happens at four formal checkpoints.

Every project runs out of a shared Notion client portal — schedule, deliverables, open decisions, feedback threads, and change requests all in one place, visible to your team at any time. See a demo portal ↗

Phase 1

Discovery & Architecture

Phase 1 grounds the rebuild in real data and real audiences before design starts. Every audience the RFP names gets identified now, not assumed later, and today's content and tech-stack problems get diagnosed before we design around them.

  • Stakeholder discovery, led in person locally by Aaron
  • Content audit validated against a fresh crawl, GA4, and Search Console
  • Information architecture scoped across every RFP-named audience
  • Tech-stack audit of existing tools 
  • Functional requirements document and sitemap
  • Brand direction coordinated with your current agency
Phase 2

Design System & Prototyping

With architecture approved, we move into a responsive component-based design system. Building it as a system rather than page by page is what keeps "Step Into the Real Texas" consistent everywhere, including Route 66 Festival and Greater Amarillo Film Commission, without duplicating design decisions across the site.

  • Wireframes and prototypes for core templates 
  • Route 66 Festival and Greater Amarillo Film Commission designed within the same system, not disconnected microsites
  • Formal design approval checkpoint before build
Phase 3

Build & Migration

Development and content migration happen in parallel, following the plan set in Phase 1. Dynamic content collections stay clearly separated from manually authored content so the site doesn't turn into a duplicate-content problem later.

  • CMS configuration and the integrations with tools identified in our tech audit
  • Content migration and redirect mapping
  • Greater Amarillo Film Commission and the Route 66 Festival fold in as content and branding work, not separate technical builds
Phase 4

QA, Training & Launch

Before launch, your team runs in-house user testing on the new website. Our team runs an internal audit in parallel as quality assurance.

  • QA cycle covering functionality, accessibility, performance, and redirects
  • User testing covers information architecture flows identified in Phase 1
  • Agreed launch blockers resolved before go-live
  • Admin and editor training ahead of launch
Conceptual prototypes

A few ideas, made clickable

These are directional concepts, not finished design — nothing here is pixel-perfect or final, and none of it presumes the outcome of Phase 1. They exist to make a few ideas easier to react to than a static mockup would be. Use the switcher at the bottom of the frame to move between three different prototypes.

Working prototype · event discovery

The clickable prototypes live online — three concepts, switchable at the bottom of the frame: visit-amarillo-prototype.vercel.app

Working prototype · event discovery
Open full screen ↗
06

Technical
Approach

6.1 — Platform

Platform

We're recommending Squarespace — fully hosted, low-maintenance, and well suited to a small in-house team without dedicated technical staff. A few requirements (open API access, structured data control, full WCAG remediation) don't come standard, but each is solvable with custom code we'll document directly.

6.2 — Discoverability

Search, SERP & LLM Readiness

We'll build for how people search now — structured data, clean semantic HTML, and content built for discoverability across AI search tools, not just traditional search.

  • Structured data across events, places, articles, and local-business types
  • Clean URLs, canonicalization, and sitemap governance
  • Content patterns built for both search engines and AI/LLM retrieval
  • Ongoing monitoring for search and AI referral performance
6.3 — Accessibility

Accessibility

Base scope covers best-effort remediation — addressed at every project stage, with known gaps and a remediation plan documented at launch. Formal WCAG 2.2 AA certification is available as a priced add-on through a third-party consultant.

Multilingual

Weglot built in at launch, not deferred. Implementation is included in the base build; the ongoing subscription is a third-party cost, itemized in Section 8.

Hosting & Coordination

Squarespace owns infrastructure, uptime, patching and backups; that subscription is paid directly by Visit Amarillo. Our role is setup, DNS/domain coordination with Andrews & Associates and GoDaddy, and a documented disaster-recovery approach.

07

Schedule

A project start of October 1, 2026 supports a public launch no later than June 30, 2027 — a nine-month timeline that gives each phase real room to do good work.

Phase
Timeline
Key milestone
01
Discovery & Architecture
Oct 1 – Dec 15, 2026
Approved functional requirements, sitemap, migration plan
02
Design System & Prototyping
Dec 15, 2026 – Feb 15, 2027
Design approval on core templates
03
Build & Migration
Feb 15 – May 15, 2027
Feature-complete staging environment
04
QA, Training & Launch
May 15 – June 30, 2027
Public launch

Each phase closes with a review and approval checkpoint. Visit Amarillo's role is timely feedback, access to existing systems and data (CMS, analytics, Search Console), staff availability for the on-site visit, and in-house testing during Phase 4. Two things sit outside our control: final vendor selection and content creation or approval turnaround during migration. We'll flag early if either puts the June 30 date at risk.

08

Pricing

$70,000
Base total, tax exempt

Pricing is itemized against the RFP's own categories, all inclusive of the $70,000 base budget. As a tax-exempt nonprofit, no taxes are included in any figure below.

Cost category
In base
Price
Discovery, strategy, site visit & project management
Yes
$7,500
Information architecture, UX & complete redesign
Yes
$14,000
CMS/platform, development & integration work
Yes
$21,000
Content audit, migration, redirect mapping & launch SEO
Yes
$10,500
Accessibility testing & best-effort remediation
Yes
$3,500
Analytics/tagging implementation
Yes
$2,000
Training, documentation, launch support & hosting coordination
Yes
$5,500
Base total
$70,000

Optional services & third-party fees

Not included in the base fee.

Squarespace subscription
Fully-hosted platform cost, paid directly to Squarespace. Core or Plus plan likely sufficient — roughly $29–$49/month ($350–$590/year) as a planning estimate, confirmed once final scope is set.
Maintenance & development retainer (optional)
Proactive updates, monitoring, and priority dev time year-round — an opt-in annual retainer with Aaron rather than folded into the base fee. Custom retainer packages available starting from $750/month or flexible based on need.
Formal WCAG 2.2 AA certification
Third-party accessibility consultant; rough estimate $5,000–$7,000, priced upon scoping — not included in base best-effort remediation.
Weglot multilingual subscription
Implementation included in the base build — live at launch, not deferred. The subscription is a third-party cost billed directly to Visit Amarillo; $790–$2,990/year as a planning estimate, confirmed once final word and page count is determined. Nonprofit discount available. 
Event feed, GBP/listings, UGC platform fees
Third-party vendor costs outside this proposal's scope per RFP are the responsibility of Visit Amarillo. 
Custom components
Interactive maps/filtering, partner-ad or sponsored-content widgets. We can design and build any additional components Visit Amarillo needs, scoped and priced separately based on requirements and complexity.
Domain & Hosting
Domain & hosting paid by Visit Amarillo directly to registrar and host provider. If custom components are created, additional hosting may be needed and will be disclosed prior to approval of component build. 

Payment schedule

25% — Phase 1 kickoffOct 1, 2026
25% — Phase 2 kickoffDec 15, 2026
25% — Phase 3 kickoffFeb 15, 2027
25% — Phase 4 kickoffMay 15, 2027

Hourly rates

All post-launch, change-order, and support work outside the 30-day launch stabilization window is billed at $195/hour for all requests.

Revisions & changes

Requests outside agreed scope are logged through the same shared client portal used for support, scoped and quoted before work begins, and require written approval before billing.
09

Training,
Launch &
Support

Training

Admin and editor training before launch — content publishing, media library, forms, the emergency banner — plus documentation in plain language, not developer shorthand. Sessions are recorded, doubling as reference material for staff turnover.

Launch stabilization

The first 30 days after launch are a dedicated stabilization window, included in base — we watch closely and treat anything that surfaces as priority work. Small changes (copy edits, image swaps) are staff-editable directly in the CMS, no request needed.

Ongoing support (optional)

Beyond stabilization, we're not bundling an open-ended hours pool into the base fee. Work is billed hourly with a clear change-order process, or covered by an optional annual retainer. 

10

Ownership &
Transition

Visit Amarillo owns everything that comes out of this project — the website, source code, design files, content, data, domains, analytics, and repositories — outright, upon final payment.

Core accounts and repositories are set up in or transferred to Visit Amarillo's own control from the start, not held in ours.

There's no proprietary lock-in on our end. If Visit Amarillo ever wants to move to another provider, we'll document any dependencies, license terms, or export limitations clearly, and provide reasonable transition assistance to make that move straightforward rather than painful.

11

Assumptions
& Exceptions

Accessibility
Base scope delivers best-effort WCAG 2.2 AA remediation. Formal certification is available as a priced add-on (Section 8).
Hosting & maintenance
Base includes hosting coordination and setup. Ongoing proactive maintenance is available as an optional annual retainer, priced separately.
Support hours
Base includes a 30-day launch stabilization window. Beyond that, support is billed hourly or covered by the optional retainer — no monthly hours bucket is included.
Travel
No travel cost in this proposal — Aaron is based locally in Amarillo; Kristine and Will join remotely.
Film Commission & Route 66
Both fold into the primary CMS as content and branding workstreams, carrying the same "Real Texas" design system as the rest of the site.
Copywriting
Stays in-house at Visit Amarillo; our role is copy editing.
12

Next steps.

  1. 1
    Let us know you'd like to move forward.

    A short email to Aaron Soto is all it takes — no formal acceptance paperwork required to start the conversation.

  2. 2
    We'll send a contract and initial invoice.

    Reflecting the payment schedule in Section 8, for your review and signature.

  3. 3
    Once signed, we schedule a kickoff call.

    Together, to confirm logistics ahead of the October 1, 2026 start date.

  4. 4
    Work begins on schedule.

    October 1, 2026 — with a public launch no later than June 30, 2027.

Amarillo has a real story to tell, and Step Into the Real Texas is a promise worth building a site around properly. We'd be glad to be the ones who do it.

Questions before then can go directly to Aaron Soto at aaron@suenoandco.com.