Karen-Jordan_800.jpg

Karen Jordan

Karen Jordan is a freelance journalist, filmmaker, and author based in Los Angeles. She has contributed to The Atlantic, Los Angeles magazine, and the Huffington Post.

Urban Land is spotlighting some trailblazing women in commercial real estate, all of whom are members of the ULI Women’s Leadership Initiative. Emma West, partner at Toronto-based Bousfields Inc., says it was the women who were part of the WLI Toronto Committee when she first joined who were instrumental in her professional development.
The number of women who have joined ULI has more than doubled in recent years, from 20 percent of ULI’s nearly 28,000 members to more than 13,000 female members, which equates to 29 percent of the organization’s 45,000 members. In celebration of this growth, Urban Land is spotlighting some trailblazing women in commercial real estate, all of whom are members of the ULI Women’s Leadership Initiative. Julie Smith, chief administrative officer at Maryland-based Bozzuto and a former ULI District Council Leader, is among them.
Los Angeles attorney George Fatheree III—who made national headlines for aiding members of the Bruce family in the return of beachfront property that was taken from their ancestors, nearly a century ago, through eminent domain—is embarking on a new venture, his own social impact fintech, ORO Impact.
Developer Quintin Primo, who has done more than $14 billion worth of transactions over his decades-long career, is currently eyeing revitalizing Chicago’s Loop in his hometown, among other projects.
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.
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.
Settegast, a neighborhood in Northeast Houston, is home to a resilient and tight-knit community that has mobilized in response to decades of discriminatory practices and under-resourcing. As a result of systematic neglect, Settegast residents face challenges such as displacement, gentrification, and most notably, poorer health outcomes, including the lowest life expectancy rate in Harris County. To find solutions, ULI Houston partnered with Harris County Public Health, the Houston Land Bank, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and convened community residents and real estate leaders to build trust and chart a more equitable future for the neighborhood.
Over the past 18 months, ULI Toronto and partners forged an understanding of the trends, pressures, and challenges experienced by Toronto’s Black population to shine a light on how history is shaping the present. The team documented Black displacement and Black settlement patterns in the Toronto area, focusing on the Mount Dennis neighborhood, which has faced disinvestment. The perspectives and priorities of Mount Dennis residents were gathered to inform development priorities and future projects.
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