To meet the evolving expectations of today’s travelers, new hotels are being infused with active, social spaces that encourage interaction between guests, offer unique experiences with local flavor, and provide healthy lifestyle amenities, said experts speaking at a ULI San Diego/Tijuana event.
Tijuana’s historic Zona Centro, a 55-block downtown district and a ten-minute walk from the U.S. border, is undergoing a renaissance that is replacing taco stands and tourist curio shops with residential developments, great restaurants, collaborative workspaces, art galleries, bicycle stations, craft beer breweries, and other entertainment venues. To celebrate its progress, ULI San Diego/Tijuana has selected Zona Centro for the 2017 Emerging Healthy Places Award.
Leaders in transforming San Diego into a smarter city came together in February at a ULI San Diego/Tijuana breakfast program to discuss strides the city has made, what is coming next, and the need to get public buy-in for deploying technologies needed to advance the city’s Climate Action Plan goals, improve quality of life all residents, and accommodate future growth.
The housing affordability gap in San Diego is among the highest in California, with the average household shelling out 35 percent of their income for housing, and one-quarter of the population spending half of their income on rent. Recently, ULI San Diego/Tijuana brought together multifamily housing experts with local government and community leaders to discuss creative ways to increase the workforce-housing stock.
National Football League team owners in January gave their blessing to plans to return the Rams to Los Angeles after a 20-year hiatus in St. Louis. The City of Champions Revitalization Initiative, as it’s being called, is replacing Inglewood’s dated Hollywood Park racetrack with a sports-oriented, mixed-use development expected to create an immediate financial boon for the area.
Net-zero-energy (NZE) buildings were the focus at a recent conference in California, a state that has mandated that all new commercial buildings must be net-zero energy by 2030, and 50 percent of the existing commercial structures must be retrofitted.
Across San Francisco Bay, Oakland is undergoing a building surge as rising rents in San Francisco drive workers and small businesses to seek affordability.
An unloved, enclosed downtown shopping mall is being opened up to create a “Rockefeller Center” for Los Angeles. The centerpiece of the project is an upscale 400,000-square-foot (37,000 sq m) outdoor shopping, dining, and entertainment district.
Soon to celebrate its centennial, San Francisco’s historic City Hall was recently awarded LEED Platinum certification for Existing Buildings: Operation & Maintenance (EBOM), the oldest building in the United States to achieve the USGBC’s highest rating.
The successful development of the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio, set into motion a nationwide flurry of development of urban sports-oriented entertainment districts, as municipal officials across the country reimagined their city centers as places where people live, work, and play.
Clean, renewable energy technologies are already powering homes, commercial buildings, and cars, but will soon be taking on heavier assignments, including moving trains, trucks, and even jets, experts said at a shared conference day of FutureBuild 2015 and the Green Marketmaker’s Conference, held in Los Angeles in late January through a partnership between ULI Los Angeles and VerdeXchange.
State and municipal governments are taking steps to ensure the safety of their coastal communities by implementing more stringent design and building standards for new construction and redevelopments. They also are beginning to replace old infrastructure.
