The construction phase is where the vision of a future-proof parking facility truly takes shape, where theoretical plans transform into a tangible, tech-ready structure. This step isn’t merely about pouring concrete and raising steel; it’s a critical juncture for embedding the smart capabilities that will define the modern parking experience and ensure its long-term relevance in an evolving mobility landscape.
Within the next 50 years, Earth will become a planet of cities. From São Paulo to Shanghai, Lagos to Los Angeles, today’s cities are no longer just places where people live. They are the active ingredient shaping how humanity evolves, how we work, how we connect, and how long we may ultimately thrive as a species. Arguably, few organizations are better positioned to contend with the challenges of a fast-urbanizing world than ULI.
Data centers entail a massive carbon footprint, both physically and operationally, and have often been criticized for their significant energy consumption. The environmental consequences have become even more acute with the rise of AI, which requires enormous computing power and cooling. Cities, designers, and policymakers now face the urgent challenge of reimagining these resource-intensive facilities so that they can meet rising energy demands while mitigating climate pressures, ensuring these buildings enhance their immediate environments rather than compromise them. The Terra Ventures Data Center in San Jose, California, exemplifies this socially responsible approach. Expected to be completed in 2027, the new facility aims to showcase how careful planning can meet both global demand and local responsibility.
In 2025, the country’s industrial market is experiencing a rebalancing in the wake of surging demand and record new supply that marked the early pandemic years. New opportunities in fast-growing markets are emerging, and demand drivers are shifting. New space demand will grow the most, especially for small-bay industrial assets, according to a Q3 2025 report from the business advisory and accounting firm Plante Moran.
Industry Voices
Canada’s real estate market remains deeply challenged: Although 2026 isn’t expected to deliver a rapid rebound, there is growing recognition that the next cycle will not mirror the last. Instead, the industry is entering a generational transition that demands new strategies, partners, and capital sources, as well as a fundamental modernization of how companies operate. A record-breaking crowd of more than 500 real estate leaders heard the “balanced but cautiously optimistic” 2026 outlook at the 21st Annual “ULI Toronto Trends in Real Estate” event at the Fairmont Royal York hotel.
Few properties in South Florida, or ones well beyond the area, embody vision and resilience quite like Pier Sixty-Six. With its unmistakable spire-crowned tower, set along Fort Lauderdale’s storied Intracoastal Waterway, the landmark has defined the city’s skyline for more than half a century. As a multi-billion-dollar redevelopment of this 32 acre (13 ha) waterfront is now complete, Pier Sixty-Six stands as a model for how iconic real estate assets can be reborn, honoring their history while shaping the next century of urban waterfront development.
Around the turn of the 21st century, downtown Kansas City, Missouri, faced challenges familiar to many American cities: abandoned buildings and surface parking lots filled 10 core blocks despite multiple redevelopment attempts dating to the 1960s. The downtown residential population was sparse, and some 60,000 downtown office workers made haste for the suburbs at 5 o’clock each weekday.
The city of Sugar Land has always stood out amid the sprawling metropolis of Houston, Texas. Located just south of downtown Houston, Sugar Land was named for the large sugar factory that operated for more than a century before operations ended in the early 2000s.
In 2013, when the founders of Redbrick LMD looked over a large swath of land in Southeast Washington, D.C., they immediately connected with the breathtaking views of the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Anacostia River, and expansive green space. They recognized that this kind of access was rare anywhere in the region, but especially in this often-overlooked corner of the city.
The evolution of community efforts to improve access to housing reveals that successful projects often hinge on fostering strong local partnerships that can provide essential supports and services.
Project Profiles
The scarcity of on-campus housing—especially affordable housing—means many students have little choice but to forgo the convenience, economy, and other benefits of campus life. Now, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has become the first in the CSU system to address this disparity by adding new on-campus housing that is both affordable and can be quickly replicated across the entire system to bolster its on-campus populations.
In Midtown Atlanta, the Georgia Institute of Technology Foundation is turning the 100-year-old former Biltmore hotel into a mecca for incubating technology startup ventures.
As the environmental impact of construction remains heavily scrutinized amid growing concerns around climate change and resource depletion, universities are turning to new design strategies that prioritize innovation, environmental integration, and sustainability.
ULI Advisory Services
New resilience framework touches on infrastructure, economy, equity, housing, and cultural vitality.
A team of ULI experts visited Fort Worth in September 2024 to develop anti-displacement strategies for the city’s historic, majority Hispanic Northside neighborhood, which faces mounting pressure from two nearby megadevelopments, as well as broader metropolitan growth trends that drove up the area’s property values 60 percent from 2016 to 2021.
A group of experts representing ULI visited Buffalo, New York, last November to make recommendations for reviving the city’s Jefferson Avenue Corridor, the main thoroughfare of a historically black area that has suffered a decline in commercial, social, and civic activity and engagement as the result of decades of disinvestment and a recent racially motivated shooting.
Urban Land Contributors
