Patrick L. Phillips

From 2009 to early 2018, Patrick L. Phillips served as the Global Chief Executive Officer of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). ULI, which currently has more than 200 employees and a budget of nearly $75 million, is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has offices throughout the world. As Global CEO, Phillips worked with ULI’s member leaders to lead all aspects of ULI’s strategy, mission delivery, resource allocation, and fiscal performance. Phillips, a longtime member of ULI, has had a career in the economic analysis of real estate and land use that spans more than 30 years. Prior to taking the position as the top staff executive at ULI, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of ERA AECOM (formerly Economics Research Associates). In that role, he coordinated all aspects of ERA’s organization, strategy, business development, and service delivery. His own consulting practice focused specifically on the intersection of private investment and public policy. To further expand ERA’s reach and impact, Phillips guided the successful sale of the company in 2007 to AECOM, a globally renowned provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of industries, including land use, transportation, environmental and energy. His work at ERA AECOM focused on development strategy, development economics and feasibility analysis, and transaction-related services for real estate investors and developers, public agencies, financial institutions, universities, and non-profit organizations. This involved all major categories of urban land use, with an emphasis on the market, economic, and financial aspects of a new generation of downtown and suburban mixed-use projects. Under Phillip’s direction, ERA provided consulting services for such notable development projects as Mockingbird Station in Dallas, Atlantic Station in Atlanta, and the repositioning of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza; as well as public planning projects for the Hudson Yards in New York City and Houston’s Buffalo Bayou. Phillips has often advised public agencies and non-profit organizations on issues related to public-private partnerships for economic development. He is a frequent speaker on urban development issues, and is the author or co-author of eight books and numerous articles. In 2005, Phillips led a nationally prominent economic development team as part of the ULI advisory services panel making recommendations on post-Katrina rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. Patrick teaches at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design Executive Education Program and at the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University. His academic training includes a graduate degree in public management and finance from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

As fiscal year 2016 comes to a close, I’m happy to report that the state of ULI is strong.
Over the past year, we’ve spent quite a bit of time examining the intersection of technology and real estate; the topic has dominated real estate sessions at ULI meetings, inspired Institute publications and articles, and come up in informal member-to-member exchanges.
With 2016 under way, I am very excited and hopeful about the changes taking place at ULI this year. We are continuing to move forward in three key areas: 1) a new global governance structure;
2) a major new information technology initiative; and 3) a relocation into a new workplace in Washington, D.C.
This past October, an article in Business Insider described the lifestyle of a 23-year-old Google employee who decided to live inside the back of a delivery truck that he had purchased and parked at the company’s headquarters rather than pay an exorbitant rent to live in San Francisco. The lack of affordable housing in high-cost markets is, of course, nothing new. But what stories like this illustrate are examples of a new take on the housing problem that persists in cities around the world. Affordable housing is being discussed as much as a generation Y issue as it is an income issue.

The lack of affordable housing in high-cost markets is, of course, nothing new. But what these stories illustrate are examples of a new take on the housing problem that persists in cities around the world. Affordable housing is being discussed as much as a generation Y issue as it is an income issue.

The 2015 ULI Fall Meeting, set for October 5–8 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is shaping up to be one of the most successful convenings in the organization’s history.
August 29 marks the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans and devastating the Gulf Coast. From an urban development perspective, this is an anniversary that is best marked not by looking back at what was lost, but by looking at what has happened since.
ULI’s 2015 Spring Meeting in Houston, open only to full members, exceeded our most optimistic expectations for participation, engagement, networking, and knowledge sharing.
ULI has hit the ground running in 2015, with new products and activities that reinforce our focus on keeping the organization energized, innovative, and, most important, member-focused.
ULI’s 2014 Fall Meeting in New York City was a blockbuster—with more than 6,200 attendees, including a record number of nearly 4,700 paid registrants; a record $3.7 million in sponsorship revenue; numerous sold-out mobile tours of the area’s most innovative developments; a record 880 new members joining ULI to attend the meeting; and an agenda so filled with knowledge sharing that the closing concurrent sessions on the final day drew standing-room-only crowds.
CEO Perspective: September signals a busy time for ULI as we step up preparations for our signature event—the annual Fall Meeting.
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