Jim Heid

Jim Heid, FASLA is the author of Building Small and founder of the Small Scale Developer Forum. Trained as a landscape architect he is now an infill developer and proponent of small scale, incremental development working across the U.S. An active ULI member for over 30 years, you can learn more about Jim and his Small efforts at www.jheid.com.

In late May, the Small-Scale Developer Forum (SSDF) celebrated its 10th year of convening. SSDF brings together over 80 attendees and speakers from all over the country—many returning time and again as the forum fills a void for real estate entrepreneurs focused on “doing development different.”
ULI MEMBER–ONLY CONTENT: An excerpt from Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders, and Great Communities.
Members Only
As the real estate industry continues to evolve in terms of project finance, design, and execution, one idea gaining quiet speed is small development. Projects that are seen as being at the vanguard of “small” bring together today’s best thinking of real estate professionals in how to shape the built environment.
The still looming waterfall of maturing commercial mortgage–backed securities, the slowly thawing capital markets, and the ongoing uncertainty about where the next market will come from have left real estate professionals searching for solid ground. Entering the third year of the broad recession, the industry has retrenched, reorganized, and is struggling to recapitalize. But is the industry retooling?
If the real estate industry can use this time to recalibrate its thinking about what is an appropriate level of risk-adjusted return, and how it might better account for all costs imposed by real estate development—from commodity to responsible—it may have a better chance to get the next decade of real estate investment right. Read how the real estate industry can lay the foundation for a more successful outcome when the market returns.
Members Sign In
Don’t have an account yet? Sign up for a ULI guest account.