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Richard Peiser

Richard Peiser is the Michael D. Spear Professor of Real Estate Development at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is a ULI Foundation governor and a member of the Institute’s Urban Development/Mixed Use Council.

New towns and master-planned communities played a major role in the growth of the Los Angeles metropolitan area throughout the 20th century. With the invention of mass-produced housing in the 1940s—a factory in the field, as exemplified by Levittown in New York—Los Angeles developed rapidly after large ranches such as Palos Verdes and Bixby Ranch were master-planned for housing and neighborhood amenities.
A combination of passive and active building systems, solar photovoltaics, and building envelope technology drastically reduces building energy use.
Better described now as a mixed-use building than a garage, 1111 Lincoln Road provides a gateway to the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall conceived by Morris Lapidus, the influential 1950s Miami Beach architect.
Even if the storefront occupants are only temporary, orchestrating the right mix of retail and residential tenants helps give a redevelopment a certain vibe.
Hard-earned words of wisdom on risk, financing, and running a real estate business.
A primary challenge for university faculty has been how to teach design to real estate students. The goal is not to make them architects, but to make them knowledgeable clients.
Two weeks after the last U.S. presidential election, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, told a group of business executives, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” He later clarified this comment with the following: “It’s an opportunity to do things you could not do before.” Thus far, in a perusal of the real estate industry after the current economic crisis, it appears that we are letting a good crisis go to waste. So far, except for the enormous downsizing that has taken place, it seems all too much like “business as usual.”

A developer friend of mine asks, “Where do you go if you have no money and no credit?” He responds with the surprising answer that a lot of folks—the fund guys—have lots of money if you have deals in Boston, California, or Washington, D.C. He initially thought this would be like 1991, but the big difference is this: there are no good deals. “There are no bargains out there, at least in those areas favored by the funds,” says Ted Raymond, president of Raymond Property Company in Boston. But there is plenty of money for experienced developers, even those with lots of scars—as long as one can deliver a 20 percent internal rate of return (IRR).

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