Experts encourage the creation of community rebuilding authorities and other measures to ensure the best-case scenario for recovery after January’s wildfires.
Downtown Atlanta is experiencing nothing short of a major renaissance. Now, one of its most iconic addresses is being remade into a modern classic, thanks to the transformation of the former CNN Center.
Nestled in the forested hills west of Napa Valley, Enchanted Hills Camp—which is owned by LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired—has provided unparalleled recreational opportunities and skills training for blind and low-vision campers of all ages since 1950. After the devastating Napa wildfires of 2017 destroyed more than 25 structures and in excess of 900 trees on the property, the camp was not only rebuilt but also reimagined.
Sponsored
The exponential growth in data creation and a significant shift toward cloud computing in recent years have driven soaring demand for data centers. Although artificial intelligence (AI) is frequently cited as the primary driver of the surge in demand for these facilities and their construction, JLL’s latest North America Data Center Report reveals a more nuanced reality. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the current market, challenges that the sector faces, and forecasts for the future of the booming data center industry.
Tariffs
How are tariffs likely to affect commercial real estate?
Real estate professionals—from developers to investors—may need to re-evaluate underwriting assumptions and growth expectations.
Sponsored
U.S. tariffs have increased from around 3 percent to 24.8 percent on a trade-weighted rate—the highest in over a century—and would climb to 32.8 percent if all proposed levies were implemented. The Yale Budget Center conservatively estimates that tariffs will cause the personal consumption expenditures price index to rise 3 percent, cutting household purchasing power by $4,900 annually.
Focus on 2025 Spring Meeting: Colorado
The Lewis Center for Sustainability Forum commemorated the 10th anniversary of its Building Healthy Places Toolkit, a pivotal resource designed to integrate health and wellness into real estate development. The forum—held on the first day of ULI’s 2025 Spring Meeting, in Denver, Colorado—brought together industry leaders, each of whom highlighted the toolkit’s significant impact and the evolving focus on health within the built environment.
The 27th annual ULI Real Estate Economic Forecast points toward positive, but also toward sharply lower expectations for GDP and job growth this year. The consensus forecast calls for GDP growth to decline to 1.3 percent this year—a 150-basis-point drop compared to 2024.
During the “Capital Markets: Raising Equity Today” discussion at ULI’s 2025 Spring Meeting in Denver, Colorado, a panel of industry experts and capital providers—moderated by Faron A. Hill, president of Peregrine Oak—shared their insights with a standing-room-only crowd on what they’re looking for in an equity partner—and what makes them walk away from deals.
The hotel industry in the United States faces complex challenges in 2025, according to Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics for the CoStar Group. During the “State of the U.S. Hotel Industry” presentation at the ULI 2025 Spring Meeting in Denver, Colorado, Freitag highlighted the challenges facing the hotel business amid macroeconomic uncertainty.
Capital is widely available for real estate borrowers, and lenders are eager to do business. This takeaway was a key theme from a panel discussion held at the 2025 ULI Spring Meeting in Denver, Colorado.
Developer sought to improve people’s lives through her work.
Finding success in deploying a collaborative strategy to combat the local housing crisis.
When Denver’s Stapleton International Airport closed in the mid-1990s, community leaders saw a chance to create a new, 4,700-acre (1,900 ha) community just six miles east of downtown. The project’s original developer, Forest City Stapleton (sold to Brookfield Properties in 2018), kicked off an urban transformation that is now nearing completion 25 years later. Known for extensive resilience strategies to reduce the effects of drought, flooding, and extreme heat, Central Park’s 12 neighborhoods are home to nearly 35,000 residents, with 60 parks as well as extensive pedestrian and bicycle trails.
The Colorado Rockies’ ownership leased a parking lot adjacent to Coors Field in order to construct McGregor Square, a 3.2-acre (1.3 ha) mixed-use development that serves baseball fans, tourists, and the broader community.
Institute trustee and Foundation governor was a force in Denver real estate
The history of Denver is closely intertwined with the South Platte River. From the city’s initial settlement along the riverbanks in 1858 to subsequent urbanization that altered its natural course, the South Platte has played a significant role in Denver’s evolution. For much of the 20th century, however, metropolitan development turned away from this vital waterway.
Eight years after a ULI Advisory Services panel gathered in the shadow of Pikes Peak to brainstorm about revitalizing Colorado Springs, the recent opening of the $91 million U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in the southwest corner of downtown represents an important cornerstone of the city’s urban renewal effort while bolstering its identity as “Olympic City, USA.”
Industry Voices
By repurposing an underutilized hotel as student housing, San José State University ignites campus life and fuels a downtown resurgence
The creation of public space from unused, underused, or unequally shared linear spaces in urban areas has been happening for a long time. Major reference points in the architectural and planning worlds are Boston’s Emerald Necklace, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (1878–1896); Freeway Park in Seattle (1972-1976); the Baltimore Inner Harbor (1963–1983); the Promenade Plantée in Paris (1987-1994); and the High Line in New York (2005–2019).
Helping Boulder County rebuild and strengthen after the Marshall Fire
Phase 2 of the Willets Point redevelopment project is transforming an industrial part of Queens that once-inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “valley of ashes” in The Great Gatsby in 1925. A century later, Queens Development Group—a joint venture between Related Companies, Sterling Equities, and New York City Football Club—is converting 23 acres (9.3 ha) of underutilized land into a $3 billion mixed-use community.
When Ballantyne first emerged out of North Carolina farmland, more than 30 years ago, the original developers of this master-planned project already had a concrete vision in mind for its future: evolution. The development team intrinsically understood that, as Ballantyne—an affluent community nestled in south Charlotte—would expand beyond its farmland roots, the project would need to adapt to meet the needs of a more diverse and changing demographic.
Downtown Revitalization
The Lewis Center for Sustainability Forum commemorated the 10th anniversary of its Building Healthy Places Toolkit, a pivotal resource designed to integrate health and wellness into real estate development. The forum—held on the first day of ULI’s 2025 Spring Meeting, in Denver, Colorado—brought together industry leaders, each of whom highlighted the toolkit’s significant impact and the evolving focus on health within the built environment.
More than a century ago, the Baltimore waterfront was a working harbor. After a massive 1970s redevelopment that turned the area into the centerpiece of Baltimore’s tourism industry, the American Institute of Architects called it “one of the supreme achievements of large-scale urban design and development in U.S. history.” Yet it became insolvent in 2019. Key lessons learned here can prevent this cycle from repeating as we envision what the next 100 years might hold for the center of Charm City.
Nestled in the shadow of SSM Health’s new $550 million hospital and Saint Louis University’s medical and undergraduate campuses, the former Steelcote Manufacturing Company Paint Factory and its neighboring parcels constituted a forgotten remnant of St. Louis’ proud industrial past. Few observers, if any, envisioned the area’s potential for housing not only students and hospital employees but also national entertainment options such as Topgolf and a major retailer, Target.