In Depth
As the world struggles to deal with the threat posed by climate change, Toronto provides a template for how cities can dramatically reduce emissions at an urban scale, in a way that is sustainable from a business standpoint, according to panelists at the 2023 ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto.
Avison Young CEO Mark Rose shares how changes in work patterns, the rise of hybrid and remote working, new space usage trends, and the ever-increasing effects of e-commerce on physical brick-and-mortar retail are driving the need for adaptation and creative utilization.
The senior housing occupancy rate increased 0.3 percentage points from 82.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 83.2 percent in the first quarter of 2023, according to data from NIC MAP Vision released by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care. The occupancy rate has increased 5.4 percentage points overall from a pandemic low of 77.8 percent in the second quarter of 2021 but remained 4.0 percentage points below the pre-pandemic high of 87.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020.
Occupancy rates for life-sciences buildings remain around 98 percent in the top markets, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle continues to attract startups and development.
Deepblocks brings together the core components of the real estate development process—zoning, brokerage, architecture, design, construction, and so on—into one single process guided by artificial intelligence.
Florida’s resilience continues to be a huge and growing priority as existing buildings age and growth across the state remains steady, according to panelists at the 2022 ULI Florida Meeting in Miami. Strategic decisions and plans focused on strength and resiliency are helping mitigate real estate from wind and flooding damage, and serving as lessons to other, more mature communities planning a more resilient future.
The U.S. has been hit with 15 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the first nine months of 2022, according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
A new ULI report investigates how the real estate community is working to address the homelessness crisis in the United States. The report explores how to support people experiencing homelessness through creative housing solutions and collaboration with community organizations, with the ultimate goal of providing abundant, affordable, and high-quality housing for affected and at-risk populations.
A growing number of resilient buildings can serve as models for how to embed resilience in building design and economics, ensuring that both inhabitants and financial performance are protected in the long run.
The Spring 2021 issue of Urban Land is now available for ULI members. The cover topic is “The Need for Housing: Finding solutions for an enduring problem.”
Members Only
ULI MEMBER–ONLY CONTENT: Commercial real estate is likely to have a good year in 2021—despite the devastation caused by the coronavirus, according to industry leaders at the 27th annual ULI/McCoy Symposium on Real Estate Finance.
Members Only
Though working from home has moved higher on the occupier agenda as the Asia Pacific region copes with the ongoing global pandemic, office space is adapting to the changing environment.
Government policies of racial segregation and redlining have had generations-long effects on the health and well-being of urban inhabitants, attendees heard at the ULI Virtual Fall Meeting panel titled “Deconstructing Segregation: Understanding Local History as a Basis for Equitable Development.” Action will be required if we wish to change those outcomes now.
Speaking at the 2020 ULI Virtual Fall Meeting, CNN political analyst and former state representative from South Carolina Bakari Sellers said he has two questions for America in 2020: “How far have we come, and where do we go from here?” Sellers was elected to the lower house of South Carolina’s state legislature in 2006 at the age of 22, defeating a 26-year incumbent and becoming the youngest African American elected U.S. official at the time.
The events of 2020 so far have been turning us all into masters of resilience. The Fall issue of Urban Landis available for members to access on Knowledge Finder.
We are grieved to announce that Phillip Horne, ULI Foundation president and chief advancement officer, passed away unexpectedly in August. Horne is remembered by his ULI friends and staff as an individual of the highest caliber.
In 1970, a group of visionary ULI leaders—the original 17 Foundation governors, led by ULI past president Robert Nahas—sought the most effective way to elevate the Institute’s position in the transformative improvement of communities worldwide.
As COVID-19 continues to spread around the globe, people are struggling to establish best practices for themselves and their communities. Amid a cacophony of hearsay and contradictory directives, there are timely and verified real data from South Korea (a country that, as of early April, seemingly had passed its peak of infections) that can provide guidance to policymakers and building owners as well as the general public.
Former ULI Foundation Chairman and longtime ULI leader James J. Curtis III, managing partner at Bristol Group Inc., a San Francisco–based real estate investment and development firm, passed away June 30 after a sustained illness. Known for being intensely passionate about his interests—including ULI—Curtis is remembered by his ULI friends and fellow members as an individual of integrity, high intellect, and compassion, and who was firmly committed to the Institute’s mission.
A new report from ULI and Heitman, a global real estate investment management firm, points to the pressing need for greater understanding throughout the industry of the investment risks posed by the impacts of climate change. Climate Risk and Real Estate Investment Decision-Makingexplores current methods for assessing and mitigating climate risk in real estate, including physical risks such as catastrophes and transitional risks such as regulatory changes, availability of resources, and attractiveness of locations.
In December, Moody’s Investors Service issued a report encouraging cities to invest in climate adaptation and mitigation. Cities will be evaluated in the future at least in part on how they prepare for both short-term climate “shocks” and longer-term trends associated with climate change. Moody’s is the largest credit rating agency to date to publicly outline how it evaluates climate change risk and integrates it into its credit rating assessments.
Internationally acclaimed architecture professor and architectural historian Vincent Scully, 2003 recipient of the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development, died November 30 at his home in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was 97.
ULI has joined with 127 U.S. mayors, along with the Trust for Public Land and the National Recreation and Park Association in launching a historic “10-minute walk” parks advocacy campaign, establishing the ambitious goal that all Americans should live within a 10-minute walk (or half-mile) of a high-quality park or green space. This bipartisan group includes mayors from all across the country and represents cities large and small, including America’s four largest cities.
Longtime ULI leader Nina J. Gruen, who pioneered the use of behavioral research to predict market demand for commercial and residential real estate, passed away on September 15, 2017. She was 83. Gruen and her husband, Claude Gruen, joined ULI in 1971, not long after founding Gruen Gruen + Associates, a renowned San Francisco–based firm that continues to provide research-based consulting and implementation services to the real estate industry and public land use and planning policy makers. Gruen, who remained active in ULI throughout her career, was elected as the Institute’s first female trustee in 1982, and was named an honorary member in 1996.
The following ten projects—all completed during the past five years—include facilities that strengthen pedestrian links to waterfronts, renovated buildings that open up interiors to views and daylight, and a converted JCPenney department store.
The growing involvement of the real estate industry in helping municipalities manage stormwater runoff with systems using natural resources is explored in a new ULI publication, Harvesting the Value of Water.
Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design recently released a report examining how urban planning and design interventions can help improve housing and urban development practice in Mexico, including densifying existing population centers with infill development and retrofitting infrastructure and services in areas where existing homes have been abandoned.
The word infrastructure, which originated during the 1920s, was unusual enough to still appear in quotation marks in the Wall Street Journalas late as the 1980s. Henry Petroski’s The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructureis an exhaustive tour of the tremendous variety of built works encompassed by the term.
Disruption was a theme that played through much of ULI’s recent Fall Meeting. While the focus was often technology and innovation, a panel at the meeting tackled water issues, calling them “risky business” for the West.
On a sunny but bone-chilling windy day in late March, with the Rocky Mountain foothills flanking their views to the west, seven members of a ULI Advisory Services panel listened to the whistle of a freight train as it made its way slowly through the heart of Olde Town Arvada, Colorado, about seven miles (11.3 km) northwest of Denver. Their task: envisioning how changes to the physical environment could improve the health of Arvada residents.
