Markets

At ULI Chicago’s October gathering at the new 73-story 1000M apartment tower, located at 1000 S. Michigan Ave., key members of the building’s development, architecture and construction teams hosted a tour of the project and enlightened attendees with a panel discussion on the history behind the skyscraper’s signature cantilever.

The construction landscape has largely held steady across the United States and Canada.

The ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate is pleased to announce its two newest board members: Esther An and Collete English Dixon.

Since the 1980s, the Dallas suburb of Plano has attracted some of the country’s biggest corporate headquarters and established itself as a hub for major employers. But how did Plano revamp to meet the goals of a changing economy and a changing community? The city made a pivot that has been echoed in growing cities around the country: a major shift toward investing in parks and activating green space.

A team of ULI experts visited Fort Worth in September 2024 to develop anti-displacement strategies for the city’s historic, majority Hispanic Northside neighborhood, which faces mounting pressure from two nearby megadevelopments, as well as broader metropolitan growth trends that drove up the area’s property values 60 percent from 2016 to 2021.

From resilient parks to bold adaptive reuse, this year’s winners redefine urban innovation and community impact across the Americas

The opportunity to plan and design more than 50 acres of inner-city urban development in any city is significant, but in Pasadena, California, it is a possible inflection point in the city’s history, an opportunity to redress past mistakes, and to set the stage for future generations to benefit from perceptive and forward-thinking planning.

“It really is about addressing community through the equity and justice lens, and the inclusion lens, to positively impact communities that have been historically disinvested in and undervalued,” said Gabrielle Bullock, principal and chief diversity officer at Perkins&Will L.A. Studio. She made the remarks at the ULI Spring Meeting in Denver during the panel, “Transformative Urban Corridors: Equitable Revitalization of Communities in Three Cities.”

In a landmark moment for California housing policy, Governor Gavin Newsom signed two transformative bills into law in June 2025—AB 130 and SB 131. They fundamentally reshape how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) applies to infill housing. Enacted as part of the state’s broader budget package, these reforms remove major procedural barriers for urban multifamily projects and signal a new direction in the state’s effort to address housing affordability through increased supply.

From Dead Mall to Living District: Replacing the “Great Wall of Galleria” with a Connected Urban Core

The ongoing challenges in decarbonizing skyscrapers, warehouses, apartments, and myriad other types of buildings were a key topic during ULI’s 3^rd Real Estate Developer & Utility Convening on September 22—part of Climate Week NYC, the largest climate conference outside of the United Nations’ COP.

Drawing on insights from more than 1,700 leading real estate investors, developers, lenders and advisors across the U.S. and Canada, the report identifies key opportunities, risks and market shifts that will shape the industry in the coming year.

Guy Kawasaki—chief evangelist at Canva, former chief evangelist for Apple, and bestselling author—summed up insights gleaned from his years in tech and as host of the Remarkable People podcast, interviewing such luminaries as Margaret Atwood, Tony Fauci, Jane Goodall, and Steve Wozniak.

The 2025 Lewis Center Sustainability Forum, held during the ULI Fall Meeting in San Francisco, explored ways that local leaders in planning, policy, and development are advancing urban strength and adaptability amid increasing climate and social stresses.

Whether you’re planning for the coming week, year, or even decade, the key question to ask is: What’s next? But in an era both fraught with uncertainty and brimming with opportunity, it is an increasingly complicated question to answer.

Canada’s real estate market is in the midst of a pivotal shift as the Bank of Canada (BoC) rolls back what has been “higher for longer” interest rates. Yet despite welcome relief on financing costs, real estate leaders are still moving somewhat cautiously amid uncertainty and fluid market dynamics.

Obsolete buildings will constitute up to 50 percent of all new housing in cities

The winners of the ULI Americas Awards for Excellence become finalists for the 2024 ULI Global Awards for Excellence, competing against projects from the Europe and Asia Pacific regions. The awards are open to projects and programs in the ULI Americas region that are substantially complete, financially viable, and in stable operation. The program evaluates submissions on overall excellence, including achievements in marketplace acceptance, design, planning, technology, amenities, economic impact, management, community engagement, innovation, and sustainability, among others.

Following a masterplan adopted by British Land, the AustralianSuper pension fund, and the Southwark Council, developers are now seven years into a 15-year project to transform a 53-acre (21.44 hectares) parcel of industrial land and a former quay into a community that will include as many as 3,000 new homes, office, retail, leisure, and entertainment space.

In the heart of London’s Covent Garden neighborhood, a complex of five Victorian-era structures—previously home to a seed merchant company, a brass and iron foundry, and a Nonconformist chapel, among other uses—have been restored and adapted into a single, cohesive office building with ground-floor retail and dining space. The three-year restoration preserved the property’s industrial heritage, yet it provides enough flexibility to meet the needs of today’s workforce.

The awards celebrate a senior leader, a young professional and a DEI champion

Although ready to commence a new real estate cycle, real estate leaders globally are braced for another challenging year of uncertainty, with lingering inflation, largely driven by factors including geopolitical instability, and persistently higher interest rates in some regions, potentially delaying a hoped-for recovery in capital markets and occupancy metrics. This is according to the Emerging Trends in Real Estate^® Global Outlook 2025 from PwC and ULI, which provides an important gauge of global sentiment for investment and development prospects, amalgamating and updating three regional reports which canvassed thousands of real estate leaders across Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific.

The outlook for the European real estate market is cautiously optimistic despite growing geopolitical uncertainty and concerns about economic growth, with London, Madrid, and Paris emerging as the standout performers, according to a new report by PwC and the Institute.

According to the second annual C Change Survey, 93 percent of respondents report incorporating transition risks into their real estate investment decisions, indicating the industry’s growing awareness and commitment to integrate climate-related financial risks into decision-making processes.

How Hong Kong leverages transit and housing to create a master class in healthy, equitable urban density.

At the 2025 ULI Asia Pacific Summit—May 26–29, in Hong Kong—a panel of Asian economic and geopolitical experts addressed one of today’s most immediate global concerns: the implications of U.S.–China economic decoupling and the broader geopolitical shifts reshaping global trade and investment.

Fourteen developments from across Asia have been named winners of the 2025 ULI Asia Pacific Awards for Excellence, one of the real estate industry’s most prestigious honors. Announced at the 2025 ULI Asia Pacific Summit held in May in Hong Kong, this year’s award winners include projects in Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore.

One of Singapore’s most vibrant districts demonstrates how public/private partnerships and the community can shape the built environment.

Governments, businesses, and communities need to collaborate to reduce carbon emissions to ensure that decarbonisation is not just a buzzword.

Although market dynamics are changing in countries across Asia, new opportunities are opening up in real estate investment