With help from a $350,000 gift from former global governing trustee Michael Spies, ULI is launching an innovative program in which artists will be invited to work with developers in the early stages of real estate projects.
The Art in Place program will help developers form creative partnerships with artists in fields ranging from painting and sculpture to dance, theater, music, and even culinary arts.
Art in Place will approach placemaking from a fresh new angle, says Juanita Hardy, a consultant to ULI and a former senior visiting fellow for creative placemaking.
“It’s engaging artists—as members of the project team, with architects, designers, and others—recognizing the context and place in which a project is situated and creating new developments that address the diverse needs of all project stakeholders, including the community, developer and its partners, and government,” Hardy says.
Michael Spies—a former senior managing director of Tishman Speyer, and now active in real estate technology ventures through his firm Fuse Strategies, and as a venture partner with Los Angeles–based Navitas Capital—says he has worked with artists on different projects over the years.
Artists’ perspectives “can serve as catalysts in creating successful spaces within developments and enhancing communities in truly sustained ways,” Spies says. “In recent years, as the lines between different uses of real estate have blurred and ‘content’ has increasingly become part of the activation of real estate, the role that may be played by the artist in the conception of land use and development has grown ever more promising.”
Spies, whose family includes generations of musicians, has long been interested in forging a connection between real estate and the arts. He served in 2018 as the jury chairman for the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development, which was awarded that year to Chicago sculptor, arts educator, and urban planner Theaster Gates.
Art in Place will leverage ULI’s existing body of work in placemaking, which dates to 2016, when the Institute launched the Creative Placemaking Project as part of the Building Healthy Places Initiative.
While the program’s structure is still taking shape, it will engage local district and national councils to assist in forming partnerships with artists. ULI’s technical assistance panels and Advisory Services panels also are expected to play a role in forging those connections.
