Facing economic challenges that include inflation, currency issues, and other headwinds, commercial real estate companies should focus more on cash flow assets as a method to drive revenue growth, Kathleen McCarthy, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate, said during a general session at the ULI Fall Meeting in Dallas.

Cities and states are lifting eviction moratoriums they put in place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Is an uptick in evictions around the corner? Not if tenants, landlords, and government officials work together to address the challenges low-income renters face, according to panelists representing the three groups who spoke at a concurrent session at the 2021 ULI Fall Meeting.

Are secondary markets stealing the lunch—tenants and investor capital—of gateway cities? Not so fast. One key takeaway from the panel discussion “Markets Shift: Are the Lines Blurring between Traditional Gateway Markets and Secondary Cities?” is that the death of the gateway market has been highly exaggerated.

A common phrase heard during the pandemic is that people cannot wait to get back to normal. “If there is anything that we know now, it is that normal just doesn’t work for far too many people,” said Julia Stasch, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, moderator of a ULI Fall Meeting general session titled “Build Back Better: The Mandate and the Opportunity,” featuring Brookings Institution vice president and director Amy Liu, and founder and chairman of PSP Partners and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration Penny Pritzker.

Slated to open in Jackson Park in 2025, the Obama Presidential Center will incorporate a museum, a forum building with collaborative and creative spaces, a large plaza, a new branch of the Chicago Public Library topped by a fruit and vegetable garden, a great lawn, a children’s play area, an athletic center, and winding landscaped paths, said representatives from the Obama Foundation at the 2021 Fall Meeting in Chicago.

Voted one of TimeOutmagazine’s “Coolest 40 Neighborhoods in the World,” Uptown is a diverse community on the North Side of Chicago. ULI Fall Meeting attendees got the opportunity to tour the neighborhood, which offers spectacular lakeside views, a growing entertainment district, and a thriving food and cultural scene.

This morning in Chicago’s South Loop, ULI members were treated to a tour of two historic and iconic buildings that have recently undergone major redevelopment and renovation: The Willis Tower and the Old Post Office.

Chicago’s Equitable Transit-Oriented Development Plan, published in June of this year and driven largely by the mayor’s office and the community collective Elevated Chicago, hopes to close some of the gaps created in the original 2013 ordinance.

Eight new hotels are now under construction in Chicago’s central business district, totaling about 1,500 new rooms, according to the latest list from STR Group. Developers are also planning to start construction on more than a dozen other new hotel projects, totaling an additional 3,700 new rooms.

Nine impressive developments from around the world have been selected as winners of the 2021 ULI Global Awards for Excellence. This year’s winners include three from North America, one from Europe, and five from the Asia Pacific region. Winning projects represent the highest standards of achievement in the land use profession.