Industry Voices
In late September 2019, 7,300 commuter students were settling into their routines at the University of Southern Maine (USM) in Portland, where the academic year had just begun. Then, at the end of the month, a fire main broke beneath the repurposed industrial building serving as the student center, flooding it with six inches of mud. City officials declared the building uninhabitable, leaving the school without a student center.
As California pushes toward a clean energy future, the city of San José has emerged as a leader in building electrification, offering valuable lessons for other cities nationwide. With residential buildings representing the largest source of natural gas use in the city, San José’s initiatives aim to reshape how these buildings are powered while prioritizing community needs, equity, and affordable housing. In 2022, ULI partnered with San Jose on an Advisory Services Panel (ASP) to inform this policy direction for multifamily buildings of all types. The aim of the ASP was to support the city in enabling property owners to step up their electrification retrofit efforts, encourage the adoption of on-site solar and batteries, and move the market forward.
Increasingly, such disasters as storms, wildfires, pandemics, and flooding are spurring cities across the United States to prioritize resiliency. Coastal communities throughout Florida know the urgency firsthand. From the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, many Florida communities were isolated in 2024 when hurricanes and other weather-related events closed roads and cut off power. Our most vulnerable populations took an especially hard hit. Planners, academics, and community members are rethinking how to elevate their response and help communities become more resilient. Could one answer be on four wheels and a chassis?
Seasoned executive shares passion for the built environment
As the Fed began a series of rate hikes in 2022, the apartment market went from one of frenzied growth and optimism to a market characterized by decline, be it declining sales volume, declining occupancy, or declining values. As we near year’s end, stability and even positive momentum have begun to take hold, and there is good reason to expect them to carry into 2025 with the return of large, open-ended funds and an improved debt environment.
The outgoing global chair of the ULI has urged the real estate industry to collaborate rather than compete in the battle to decarbonize and be more proactive over information and knowledge-sharing, particularly to investors who are less well-capitalized. Peter Ballon, who is stepping down as global chair in July, told delegates at the ULI Europe conference in Madrid in June: “We want everybody to figure [decarbonization] out. This is not where we want to compete.
And, according to bestselling author, entrepreneur, and futurist, Martin Ford, who delivered the closing keynote address at the ULI Asia Pacific Summit 2023, artificial intelligence, or AI, will soon “touch, impact and influence” every aspect of our daily lives.
As part of the 2023 Net Zero Week, ULI Young Leaders share their excitement about a decarbonized future for the industry.
It’s been over a decade since the U.S. Energy Star Portfolio Manager benchmarking tool has updated its dataset for scoring energy and water performance of multifamily assets—and Fannie Mae has launched a survey to address that.
Americans are voraciously consuming digital content. The Consumer Technology Association estimates that consumers will spend $151 billion on technology services (the category for video, gaming, audio, and apps) in 2023, marking five consecutive years of growth. Entertainment companies are hurriedly working to meet this demand by ramping up television and film production.
Brian Swett, a longtime member of ULI Boston and Arup’s Americas East Leader, has been announced as the chair of the ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability. Working with ULI staff, Swett will serve a two-year term with the Lewis Center. A former chief resilience officer for the city of Boston, Swett recently spoke to Urban Landabout the opportunities he sees in the coming months.
In mid-January, ULI New York convened three panels of top real estate experts to unpack local real estate trends for 2023.
In May 2022, the Hayti Heritage Center of Durham, North Carolina, co-sponsored a ULI Advisory Services panel with the Institute’s Foundation. The goal of the panel was to identify opportunities for intentionally inclusive development.
Longtime ULI Trustee A. Eugene (Gene) Kohn has been elected a Life Trustee by the Institute’s Global Governing Trustees, the first architect to receive the honor.
The real estate industry’s momentum on climate action only continues to grow as the new year begins, as described in the newly released ULI Global Sustainability Outlook 2023report.
The strategy to address climate change’s impact on real estate development and deals went from being a “nice to have” to a “must have,” said sustainability leaders speaking at the 2022 ULI Fall Meeting in Dallas.
As built environment professionals, our decisions and actions have significant impacts on the lives of others. In recognition of our responsibility to support conditions that improve the health, environmental quality, economic vitality, and social equity of communities, a subset of ULI members, under the auspices of the ULI Health Leaders Network, has generated a position statement—“Commitment to Health and Equity in the Built Environment”—to affirm health and equity as core values of our work.
New Land Enterprises is leasing up Ascent MKE, the tallest mass timber building in the world at 25 stories, in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Sponsored Content:How, where, and why offices are used and designed has constantly evolved for over 100 years. Yet no era unearthed more questions than today’s post-COVID world as firms and employees try to navigate the transformed office landscape. We will break down some common questions employers have and our answers to them.
Technology and contributions from all stakeholders will be crucial if Asia’s cities are to meet their net zero targets. Earlier this year, a series of three webinars organized by ULI China Mainland covered the efforts and challenges of several cities and organizations around the world to give some focus to the efforts in Beijing, which is one of the cities in ULI’s Net Zero Imperative initiative. The discussions also focused on the Chinese capital as well as Hong Kong and Singapore.
Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo opened the 2022 ULI Europe Conference discussing the two crises impacting Europe: war on the European continent and the lingering global pandemic.
Yesterday’s general session titled “Real Estate, Construction, Infrastructure, and Logistics” was delivered by Dr. Parag Khanna, managing partner of FutureMap and author of Connectography: Mapping the Future of Civilization.
The spring 2020 issue marks William P. Macht’s last as author of Urban Land’s widely popular column, Solution File. While the column will continue under other expert bylines, we wanted to take a moment to honor Macht’s past 20 years of contributions to the magazine and to industry thought leadership.
In a world where consumers have grown accustomed to streaming whatever movies they want on demand and having purchases delivered to their doorsteps the next day, commercial real estate needs to focus its efforts in innovation on providing better consumer experiences, panelists said at the “Innovative Trends in Commercial Real Estate” session at the 2021 ULI Fall Meeting in Chicago.
First launched in 2017, the podcast Leading Voices in Real Estate (LVRE) recently celebrated it’s 100th episode. The podcast is hosted by Terra Search managing partner and founder Matt Slepin and has featured many of ULI’s leaders including ULI CEO Ed Walter. Slepin recently hosted a two-part discussion of the challenges facing the commercial real estate industry tackling climate change.
The latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that the last five years have been the hottest since 1850, and that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land.” As the built environment accounts for nearly 40 percent of annual global carbon emissions, action needs to be taken.
The real estate industry is tackling the twin challenges of a cyclical downturn juxtaposed with the long-term consequences from the disruption caused by COVID-19, and the environmental, social, and governance agenda becoming increasingly important.
ULI MEMBER–ONLY CONTENT: ULI full member John McNellis considers how real estate professionals have survived financial winters of the past and present.
Members Only
In recognition of Women’s History Month, ULI is highlighting people and projects that have worked to advance gender equity and parity in the real estate industry. The Institute’s commitment to addressing the industry’s gender gap is formally seen through the Women’s Leadership Initiative.
There is still time to register for ULI Europe’s flagship event, the ULI Europe Conference, taking place February 8–10, for the first time as a virtual event. Keynote speakers participating in the conference include Lord Norman Foster, founder of Foster + Partners; Carlos Moreno, associate professor at Sorbonne University Paris and a leading proponent of the 15-minute city; Peter Frankopan, professor of global history at Worcester College, Oxford University; Philippe Close, mayor of Brussels; and Ric Lewis, executive chairman of Tristan Capital.
