Archives

China’s attempts over the last three years to deflate its debt-ridden real estate bubble have had proportionately dire economic consequences, said panelists at the 2023 ULI Fall Meeting in Los Angeles.

Real estate economists continue to expect a slowdown in the U.S. economy and real estate markets over the next year, consistent with their outlook six months ago, according to a ULI survey. The economy will slow meaningfully in 2024 before improving in 2025. The Real Estate Economic Forecast, produced by the ULI Center for Real Estate Economics and Capital Markets Estate, is based on a survey including 39 economists and analysts at 35 leading real estate organizations.

The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has selected the City of Tallahassee, Florida, as the winner of the 2023 ULI Robert C. Larson Housing Policy Leadership Award. The award was created in 2011 to honor the legacy of the late Robert C. Larson, a former ULI Foundation chairman and longtime ULI trustee.

Mariana Mazzucato, an Italian-American/British economist and academic, and author of The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies, says that the time has come for businesses and governments to take a new approach. To that end, according to Mazzucato, we must embrace taking risks as well as living with the uncertainty that “underpins all the collective investments” needed to handle crises in a proactive manner.

Cambridge Crossing, a 4.5 million-square-foot (418,063.7 square meters) mixed-use space in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was one of this year’s recipients of the ULI Americas Awards for Excellence. The roughly 43-acre (17.4 hectares) project, built at the site of an abandoned railyard, has about 2.4 million square feet (223,027 square meters) of residential space, including about 2,700 residential units, and the project had multiple master plans from different developers, dating as far back as 2003.

The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach are the biggest such facilities in the United States. Together, the two make up the San Pedro Bay Port Complex. The current forecast for cargo indicates the San Pedro Bay Ports Complex will be handling nearly double the current amount by 2040. But rising emissions also need to be addressed.

Economic and workplace upheaval from the COVID-19 pandemic took a heavy toll on urban causing lasting changes that present a major challenge to the commercial real estate industry. But the crisis also created an opportunity for aging single-use business districts to reinvent themselves as mixed-use neighborhoods, according to panelists at ULI’s Fall Meeting in Los Angeles. The panel was moderated by Diane Hoskins, ULI global chair and co-CEO of global design firm Gensler co-CEO.

“Higher and slower for longer” is one of the major trends highlighted in the newly released Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2024 report.

Experts speak about near-term prospects for development, challenges, and opportunities of obtaining financing in the current economic climate, strategies for balancing the mix of uses, ways mixed-use developments can better support local businesses, and other related trends.

Dan Parolek, an architect and urban designer and founder of Opticos Design, wrote a book on addressing the gap between single-family homes and large apartment complexes. Parolek recent spoke on a ULI webinar on housing solutions.

An analysis of hundreds of cities indicates that trips to CBDs in large cities (say, ones above 1.5 million residents) have plateaued around 60 percent of their pre-pandemic levels; smaller towns (for example, ones with fewer than 150,000 residents), in contrast, have fully bounced back.

Increasing construction expenses and pressure to decarbonize with innovative climate solutions are challenging traditional approaches in design. For Austin Achieve, a tuition-free, open-enrollment public charter school, HKS put innovative ideas into action to balance sustainability and the needs of a diverse community.

Until recently, insurance was a straightforward part of commercial real estate transactions—an important component, but generally a simple check-the-box exercise with predictable annual increases aligned with inflation. In the past few years, things have changed drastically, with skyrocketing premiums that have jarring implications for underwriters and owners.

Six impressive developments from around the world have been selected as winners of the 2023 ULI Global Awards for Excellence. This year’s winners include two from North America, two from Europe, and two from Asia Pacific.

New towns and master-planned communities played a major role in the growth of the Los Angeles metropolitan area throughout the 20th century. With the invention of mass-produced housing in the 1940s—a factory in the field, as exemplified by Levittown in New York—Los Angeles developed rapidly after large ranches such as Palos Verdes and Bixby Ranch were master-planned for housing and neighborhood amenities.

Social infrastructure, or the physical spaces communities use to gather and build relationships, are critical to building resilience to fires, storms, and other climate hazards, according to a recent report by the Urban Land Institute.

Savills chairman and CEO demonstrates the interdependence of driving revenue and DEI

A few years ago, veteran multifamily real estate developer and longtime ULI member Preston Butcher was on a street in Mountain View, California, when an unusual sort of housing complex caught his attention. LifeMoves Mountain View was something different, consisting of 100 small, boxy, modular dwellings that provide separate units for single adults, couples, and families experiencing homelessness, as well as support services and case management designed to help the residents eventually regain stability in their lives.

Developers, nonprofits, and advocates for homeless services believe that now is an ideal time to raise awareness of Title V.

Decarbonizing real estate is crucial in fighting the climate crisis, and with the federal government encouraging building owners through the Inflation Reduction Act to do their part, the industry has many details to examine. he largest incentive opportunities can be leveraged for projects that include energy efficiency, electrification, EV charging, and renewable energy (including storage), and stacking of these incentives can bring overall project costs down significantly.

Property owners received new protection for their equity from a unanimous Supreme Court decision in the Tyler v. Hennepin County case in May. The decision affirms that owners must be reimbursed for any remaining equity after a property seizure to pay tax debts. The decision is likely to trigger new legislation in numerous states.

As interest rates have risen, crowdfunding platforms have returned as a viable source of capital for developers.

ULI is honored to announce two District Councils and three National Councils have been selected to participate in the third Net Zero Imperative Cohort.

Today, the city is a vibrant enclave of Greater Los Angeles and a destination for shopping, entertainment, and sports.

On a recent summer afternoon in Manhattan, Daryl Carter, founder, chairman and CEO of Irvine, California–based Avanath Capital Management and a member of the ULI Global Board, was walking along Lexington Avenue when he—like a superstar—got recognized on the street. The passerby, who previously worked at Freddie Mac, simply wanted a minute of Carter’s time.

The Fall 2023 issue of Urban Land is now available for ULI members. Cover topics include “Global Awards for Excellence Regional Winners,” “A Solution to Homelessness,” and “Generative AI.”

As modern soundstage developments rise in Hollywood and emerging film markets elsewhere around the country, also in the works are closely related production facilities that, likewise, tap into the future of entertainment and creative production space. In the heart of Hollywood, the global architecture firm HKS is designing CMNTY Culture Campus

As communities and cities across the country face mounting land use and environmental challenges, Hilco Redevelopment Partners (HRP) and Melissa Schrock, HRP’s executive vice president of mixed-use development, are working to ensure urban redevelopment is a force for positive change.

Hollywood and the film industry has changed dramatically over the last several decades, especially in recent years with the rise of streaming networks.

ULI is deeply saddened at the passing of visionary Los Angeles developer and ULI Life Trustee Wayne Ratkovich at the age of 82. In 1977, he founded The Ratkovich Company, a development firm specializing in urban infill and adaptive reuse projects.