Kathleen McCormick

Kathleen McCormick, principal of Fountainhead Communications LLC in Boulder, Colorado, is a writer and editor focused on sustainable design and the environment.

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Resilience and Sustainability

Making Multitenant Net Zero Work in Colorado

A 100,000-square-foot (9,300 sq m) project in an emerging transit district in Boulder, Colorado, is making the business case for net-zero-energy (NZE) multitenant leased office buildings, including lower operating costs, higher profits, reduced carbon emissions, better recruitment and retention for tenants, and happier, healthier, and more productive employees. The new $40 million Boulder Commons, a mixed-use office/restaurant/retail project in two adjacent buildings, is one of the largest NZE multitenant commercial buildings in the United States, according to New Buildings Institute (NBI) data.

April 9, 2018

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Kathleen McCormick

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Design and Planning

Residential

Orange County: Where Master-Planned Communities Reign

With extensive parkland, trails, mixed uses, housing variety, and amenities, the county’s MPCs draw buyers from nearby—and across the sea.

October 23, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

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Development and Construction

Remaking Greater Los Angeles as a Transit-Oriented Region

Supported by a new half-cent tax that could fund an estimated $120 billion worth of public transit improvements over the next 40 years, the region is ramping up the creation of TODs not only in downtown, but also along transit lines further out.

September 11, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

Mixed-Use

Transforming Inner-Ring Suburbs with Walkable Mixed-Use Development

U.S. suburbs are changing in cities such as Denver, where new transit lines and placemaking efforts around walkable mixed-use neighborhoods are creating communities more similar to the urban core, said speakers at a ULI Colorado event.

August 21, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

Retail/Entertainment

Legalized Marijuana Sector Creates Opportunity, Special Requirements

Commercialized marijuana is big business and is expanding as a new asset class at an astronomical rate, according to a ULI Spring Meeting panel of industry investors, operators, and legal experts on the state of the cannabis business and real estate opportunities being created in the sector. Twenty-eight states have legalized the sale of medical marijuana, and eight states plus the District of Columbia allow recreational marijuana to some degree.

May 12, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

Industry Sectors

The Housing Paradox: Why Can’t Cities Build Enough Housing to Match Job Growth?

Why do cities with the fastest-growing economies—including Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, and Austin--suffer from a growing imbalance between job growth and housing supply? A panel at the ULI 2017 Spring Meeting in Seattle examined why hot-market cities are failing to build enough housing for new workers, often by staggering ratios.

May 10, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

News

Three Projects Helping to House Seattle’s Growing Population

Seattle developers are trying to keep pace with the demand for urban living with an explosion of new multifamily projects.

April 27, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

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Design and Planning

Emerging Trends

Six Noteworthy Developments Changing the Face of Seattle

Cranes fill the sky and construction crews complicate navigation through Seattle’s streets as development projects downtown and in other close-in urban neighborhoods usher in a higher and denser city.

April 24, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

Multifamily

Millennials’ Preferences Are Good News for Mixed-Income Development

With Denver’s population expanding from about 470,000 in 1990 to 700,000 today, many longtime residents in some gentrifying neighborhoods find it difficult to remain as rents, home prices, and property taxes climb. How do communities in other U.S. cities provide for both lower-income families and local culture while being revitalized?

March 29, 2017

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

Infrastructure

Capitalizing on TOD

As the Denver metropolitan area has topped 3 million residents, potentially accelerating toward 4 million, a sustainable land use template for future mobility and economic, social, and environmental health is emerging within the framework of the 122-mile (196 km) FasTracks rail and bus rapid transit network, which includes expansion with five new transit lines this year. A ULI Colorado event in early November attracted participants from Colorado and beyond to tour various transit-oriented development sites and hear about lessons learned and future trends.

December 8, 2016

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Kathleen McCormick

Development and Construction

Real Estate Trends

Making the Investment Case for Smarter Urban Growth

Compact, well-connected urban development can create vibrant cities that are more competitive, inclusive, and resilient and that have lower carbon footprints.

November 22, 2016

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Kathleen McCormick

Economy, Market & Trends

Repurposing Two Former Downtown Industrial Sites

Two case studies on how obsolete industrial buildings have been redeveloped for a new life in the new economy—the focus of this 2016 ULI Fall Meeting session—offered lessons about capitalizing on site location, the buildings’ qualities, and the developers’ visions for creating dynamic mixed-use places that are profitable as well as mission driven.

November 21, 2016

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Kathleen McCormick

Urban Land Contributors