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Ron Nyren

Ron Nyren is a freelance architecture, urban planning, and real estate writer based in the San Francisco Bay area.

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Design and Planning
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Asia Pacific
ULI Award Winners: Upper House’s “Dancing Balconies” Reshape Brisbane’s Skyline
Across the Brisbane River from Brisbane, Australia’s central business district, the 33-story Upper House residential tower stands out in the city’s skyline with its “dancing balconies” and curving timber ribbons inspired by the prominent roots of Queensland’s native Moreton Bay fig tree.
October 6, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Development and Construction
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San Francisco
ULI Meeting Tour Preview: San Francisco’s Mission Rock Mixed-Use Waterfront Neighborhood
A waterfront site across McCovey Cove from San Francisco’s Oracle Park had long served as a parking lot for Giants baseball fans—but little more. Today, the property is home to Mission Rock, an ambitious mixed-use development undertaken in a public-private partnership between the Giants, the Port of San Francisco, and global real estate development company Tishman Speyer. Attendees of the 2025 ULI Fall Meeting will have the opportunity to tour Mission Rock and learn how an unusually collaborative approach to development has created a neighborhood that goes beyond serving sports fans.
September 29, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Design and Planning
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Adaptive Use and Building Reuse
ULI Award Winners: A Postmodern Masterpiece’s Second Act
Designed by noted architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee and constructed in 1984, 550 Madison Avenue has a curved roof pediment that reminded enough people of Chippendale furniture to earn the nickname “the Chippendale Building.” Globally recognized as an influential postmodern masterpiece, it once served as headquarters for AT&T and later Sony, then became the youngest edifice to be designated a New York City landmark. The Olayan Group purchased it in 2016 to rework the single-tenant tower into a multi-tenant, mixed-use office building that prioritizes occupant wellness and environmental sustainability.
September 23, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Design and Planning
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Adaptive Use and Building Reuse
ULI Award Winners: Once a Warehouse, Now a Sanctuary for the Unhoused
In a historically redlined neighborhood of Minneapolis, a former industrial warehouse has become a supportive, low-barrier sanctuary for the unsheltered. Up to 200 residents can live at Avivo Village, each in their own private sleeping unit. Single-occupant shower rooms, nongendered restrooms, and communal kitchenettes and coffee areas are all ADA-compliant.
September 19, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Design and Planning
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Awards
ULI Award Winners: Long-Term Affordable Housing That Highlights Community-Building in Sydney Suburbs
In the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, two not-for-profit organizations—Fresh Hope Communities, the public benevolent institution entity of churches of Christ in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory; and Nightingale Housing of Brunswick, Victoria—came together to develop a building that holds 54 units renting at 80 percent of market rates, as well as two community-focused commercial spaces. The Churches of Christ Property Trust has provided a 99-year lease for the land, which allows the units to remain affordable far beyond a more typical 10-year period.
August 28, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Issues and Trends
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Mixed-Use
Repositioning U.S. Retail: More Malls as Mixed-Use Town Centers
As aging retail continue to evolve, one increasingly popular trend has been to redesign malls as town centers—recalling a time when such commercial districts were the heart and soul of a community. Mall–to–town center retrofits are emerging throughout the nation, especially in suburban communities, where pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use environments are highly attractive to millennials now raising families.
August 26, 2025
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Patricia Kirk
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Issues and Trends
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Industrial
Product Council Outlook for Industrial Development
What trends are shaping the future of the industrial sector? Four experts from ULI’s Industrial and Office Park Development Council talk about the industrial submarkets and property types that offer the greatest opportunities, challenges developers face in bringing new projects to market, ways artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are reshaping the sector, tenant priorities, and other key trends.

August 19, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Resilience and Sustainability
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London
ULI Award Winners: Reimagining Victorian Heritage for the Modern Workplace
In the heart of London’s Covent Garden neighborhood, a complex of five Victorian-era structures—previously home to a seed merchant company, a brass and iron foundry, and a Nonconformist chapel, among other uses—have been restored and adapted into a single, cohesive office building with ground-floor retail and dining space. The three-year restoration preserved the property’s industrial heritage, yet it provides enough flexibility to meet the needs of today’s workforce.
August 18, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Inside the ULI Foundation
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Leadership
Association for Real Property and Infrastructure Grants $109,000 for ULI’s Global Infrastructure Initiatives
The Association for Real Property and Infrastructure (ARPI) has awarded a generous grant of $109,000 to the ULI Foundation to enhance cross-regional knowledge exchange and research related to infrastructure strategies, with a particular focus on collaboration between U.S. and British members. The ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate will administer the grant.
August 13, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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Philanthropic Impact
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ULI Leadership
ULI District Councils and Foundation Partner to Secure External Grants for Community Impact
Recent gifts from Turner Construction Company Foundation, Huntington Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, and Walton Family fuel initiatives
August 11, 2025
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Ron Nyren
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