Attendees at the ULI Carolinas Meeting heard about six projects that highlight the patience, hard work, and serendipity needed for a complex project to come to fruition.

A diverse group of experts presented a stark analysis of the rollout of federal Opportunity Zones during the recent ULI Housing Opportunity 2019 conference in Newport Beach, California. More than a year after the program was established, there is still confusion over regulations and implementation, they said.

Why CRE professionals of color should be included in opportunity zone plans.

Congress authorizes tax-free profits for investors in qualified opportunity funds.

A first-time gathering of ULI product council members—drawing attendees from councils focused on multifamily housing and affordable and workforce housing—convened at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting in Boston to marshal ideas from some of the industry’s leading minds. For near-term action, participants sounded a call for creating a national playbook for local and state-level implementation, a compendium of strategies employed successfully in jurisdictions across the United States that could be adopted elsewhere.

Austin-based Kasita wants to hit the developer market with small, precision-built turnkey homes.

ULI Life Trustee Frederick Kober, chairman of the board of the Christopher Companies, passed away on March 17, 2018, in Los Gatos, California, following a lengthy illness. He was 80. Kober, who joined ULI in 1970, was named a life trustee in 2005, a recognition reserved for the Institute’s most dedicated and respected members, and bestowed to only 15 members in ULI’s 82-year history.

The long-predicted generational shift in the hotel industry is starting to happen, according to speakers at ULI’s recent “Hotel and Resort Development: Next Wave of Innovation” conference in La Costa, California. Baby boomers are growing older and millennials are developing as a buying group, forcing developers and operators to rethink developments. Everyone is racing to determine what works—and what doesn’t—as projects look to adjust to the latest trends, speakers said.

Seven cities—Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Denver; Kansas City, Missouri; Pittsburgh; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco—have been named finalists for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Smart City Challenge. DOT has pledged up to $40 million to one city to help it define what it means to be a “smart city.”

Now in its third year, the OneSpark festival highlights entrepreneurial projects in both a juried competition and a popular vote in what is touted as the “world’s biggest crowdfunding festival.” There will be 555 official OneSpark creator projects this year.