Building Healthy Places: A Decade of Transforming Real Estate for Wellness

Sibley Fleming

The Lewis Center for Sustainability Forum commemorated the 10th anniversary of its Building Healthy Places Toolkit, a pivotal resource designed to integrate health and wellness into real estate development. The forum—held on the first day of ULI’s 2025 Spring Meeting, in Denver, Colorado—brought together industry leaders, including Rachel MacCleery, executive director of the Lewis Center for Sustainability; Joanna Frank, president and CEO of Active Design Advisors and the Center for Active Design; and Brian Levitt, CEO of NAVA Real Estate Development. Each speaker highlighted the toolkit’s significant impact and the evolving focus on health within the built environment.

MacCleery opened the conversation by framing the significance of the Building Healthy Places Initiative, noting that 10 years ago, a significant shift began to take shape—the growing recognition in real estate of the connection between health and the environment. This movement was catalyzed by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) through its Building Healthy Places Initiative, which was established in 2013.

“We started hearing from our ULI members that they were persuaded about the link between health and real estate,” MacCleery said. “They understood that real estate leaders have a responsibility to create healthier places, and they wanted practical, actual guidance [on] what to do about it.” In response to this need, the initiative leveraged funding support from the Colorado Health Foundation and asked the Center for Active Design to become a research partner.

Together, they embarked on a comprehensive review of the literature, identifying “twenty-one evidence-based best practices” and many additional best practice recommendations. The practices were organized into three vital sections: “physical activity, healthy food and drinking water, and a healthy environment that promotes social well-being.”

“We worked to make the toolkit as user friendly as possible by offering schematics that showed how the strategies applied to different building typologies,” MacCleery said. To enhance accessibility, they also created a dedicated website where people could peruse the recommendations at their own pace. In addition to the website, they produced a an easy-reference “desk” poster summarizing all the key recommendations.

The culmination of these efforts has had a deep and lasting impact, demonstrating the powerful intersection between real estate and public health, and inspiring a commitment to healthier developments worldwide.

Joanna Frank expanded on the toolkit’s development and its influence over the past decade, noting how it has become increasingly relevant in real estate practices. “The standards took [up] that torch and defined health for the real estate industry in a way that’s quantifiable. So, I think that Building Healthy Places is about what action can you take, and the certifications are about how can you measure this?”

Demonstrating how healthier environments affect return on investment (ROI) is imperative in making the business case for health, according to Frank. “That’s what ULI has been doing. That’s what we’ve all been doing. And I’m happy to say that the evidence base has also evolved, so that we can now substantiate the ROI/NOI and all of those other economic indicators.”

Brian Levitt emphasized the importance of creating healthy living spaces: “We create spaces for people to live their lives . . . . The code minimum doesn’t work.” Levitt highlighted the responsibility involved and the positive business impact of fostering well-being, which ultimately benefits both individuals and the organization.

“Integrating health-oriented design has transformed our projects,” Levitt said. “The economics of wellness are compelling—healthier buildings can command higher rents and attract long-term tenants. The Covid-19 pandemic . . . further spotlighted this need, as people re-evaluate their living and working environments.” He emphasized that the toolkit has been invaluable in aligning developments with emerging health standards and community needs.

As the discussion turned to the future, the speakers reflected on the implications of a health-conscious generation. Frank addressed the evolving expectations of younger renters. “This generation values health and sustainability more than ever before. They demand spaces that support their well-being and understand the impact of their environment on their health,” she said. “As developers, we must respond to this demand by creating innovative, health-promoting spaces.”

Levitt echoed Frank’s sentiment, emphasizing that as students become the tenants of tomorrow, their preferences will shape the industry. “We have a unique opportunity to redefine what healthy living means. By prioritizing wellness in our developments, we not only meet market demand but also contribute to a healthier society.”

The panel spotlighted the collective commitment to ongoing collaboration and innovation in creating healthy communities. Attendees were then invited to continue the conversation in small breakout sessions.

Mariposa: A Model of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Affordable Housing

During the Forum’s second panel, industry leaders highlighted the Mariposa District’s transformative impact on community health and wellness. The Mariposa District is a mixed-income housing development that was built on the former site of the South Lincoln Park Homes public housing complex, which was part of the La Alma/Lincoln Park neighborhood.

The district is expected to cost $197 million, according to the Denver Housing Authority; cover 14 acres (6 ha); and add 581 multifamily, mixed-income units to the area.

Anne Torney, architect and partner at Mithun, set the stage by sharing insights into the overarching vision of the Mariposa master plan. “We wanted to work in partnership, first and foremost, with the residents, to show that we could, through the built environment, create impact on lives and . . . on the quality of lives of residents,” she said. She elaborated on the importance of community engagement in the project: “You can imagine, at the time, poverty was significant, [and] access to health care was very low.”

Torney also addressed critical issues such as safety and access to amenities. She posed a key question: “How could we be sure that we were, in fact, achieving success here? How were we moving the needle on improving the quality of life? How to know where we can progress?”

To help guide the decision-making process throughout Mariposa and develop a healthy, vibrant, sustainable neighborhood, six campaigns focused on mobility and transportation, healthy homes, education, health care, social connections, and environment and healthy places.

Sibley Fleming

One of the first partnerships was with The Colorado Health Foundation—the third-largest foundation in the United States, with more than $3 billion in assets—to support some design enhancements and programming for behavior change from the start. Susan Powers, president of Denver-based Urban Ventures LLC, said, “As we were looking at this, we realized we didn’t have . . . funding to pay for all of these . . . initiatives that seemed like they were unusual in a normal development. We were all in this new territory, and they made the first healthy living grant to this project, for close to a million dollars.”

The testing of ideas included residents’ growing their own food and designing for residents’ use of a staircase, versus an elevator, for better health outcomes. Providing bikes and bike racks for kids also meant providing a bike store for repairs. Measuring health outcomes was more complicated than measuring body mass index.

Renee Martinez-Stone, chief strategy and planning officer at the Denver Housing Authority, noted that her organization learned from residents, who at first responded that they didn’t know how to design a building. Based on residents’ input, the DHA added washers and dryers to the units, as well as what would be called a “Colorado closet” for general family goods. “As we heard from residents about gardening and about services, we started pulling in partners,” Martinez-Stone said. The Denver Botanical Gardens were brought in to help manage the community and family gardens interspersed throughout the development. Gardens lend calm and plant the seeds of healthier cooking.

Sibley Fleming

“One of the components that started to be . . . a factor there was [residents saying that] what I would like [is] to be safe and secure,” Martinez-Stone said. A daycare center was added, as was a culturally appropriate graffiti mural.

Carolyn Reid, associate director of Real Estate Development at Mercy Housing, noted that her organization has significant expertise in permanent supportive housing, which is an effective approach for helping individuals who have experienced homelessness. This method stabilizes such individuals by offering comprehensive support services. “There was a 2017 study done that showed . . . the average life span of unhoused persons is about 17-and-a-half-years shorter than [that of] the general population,” she said. “So, we started talking to some local health care partners to think about [whether we could] colocate health care with the housing.”

Sibley Fleming

Powers also pointed out that the project opened a culinary arts kitchen called the Osage Café, where people could come for reasonably priced lunches, and kids could learn the restaurant business, as well as discipline to prepare themselves for other careers. Youth on Record was brought in as a tenant by the Denver Housing Authority to empower young people through creative arts and technology programs, including music production, media, and community engagement.

After the panel, attendees, broken into three groups, took a walking tour led by Annie Hancock, director of residents community connections, Denver Housing Authority; Anyssa Juarez, project and planning manager, Denver Housing Authority; and Irene Wehrwein, deputy director, resident and community connections, Denver Housing Authority.