Mixed Use and Multi-Use
Many mixed-use projects get the hardware right. They feature a thoughtful mix of uses, beautiful buildings, and name-brand tenants. Far fewer get the “software” right—the pedestrian flow, the plaza experience, the hospitality-level service, and all the subtle details that turn a mixed-use project into something more. These elements transform a development into a vibrant, urbanesque destination—one that delivers on the promise of being a true community gathering place.
In Midtown Atlanta, the Georgia Institute of Technology Foundation is turning the 100-year-old former Biltmore hotel into a mecca for incubating technology startup ventures.
Zed Smith is the chief operating officer for The Cordish Companies. In that capacity—now for almost a decade—Smith oversees all aspects of the company’s operating properties portfolio, which includes numerous high-profile entertainment, mixed-use, and sports-anchored developments located in urban communities nationwide. Many of those developments have been transformative, thanks to their economic and cultural impact.
Local governments are rolling out new and updated programs—including tax incentives and zoning amendments—to encourage developers to convert vacant office buildings to some other use.
More than a century ago, the Baltimore waterfront was a working harbor. After a massive 1970s redevelopment that turned the area into the centerpiece of Baltimore’s tourism industry, the American Institute of Architects called it “one of the supreme achievements of large-scale urban design and development in U.S. history.” Yet it became insolvent in 2019. Key lessons learned here can prevent this cycle from repeating as we envision what the next 100 years might hold for the center of Charm City.
Shenzhen’s Nantou Ancient City project represents a groundbreaking approach to revitalizing China’s historic urban villages in a way that preserves their cultural heritage and community fabric. After China’s government designated Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone in 1980, the city’s more than 400 urban villages grew rapidly to provide informal housing for an influx of migrant workers. The result: high-density residential areas that maximized rental income but often compromised on fire safety and hygiene standards.
In the Belgian municipality of Edegem, just a 20-minute bike ride from Antwerp’s city center, a brownfield site that once stored camera film has become a biodiverse, sustainable mixed-use residential and commercial neighborhood.
Experts from Hines, JBG Smith, and Gensler anchored a McKinsey & Company panel, Reimagining mixed-use districts: strategies for new developments in an ever-changing world, at the 2024 ULI Fall Meeting last month. Panelists explored innovative ideas and case studies to illustrate how to make complex mixed-use projects work in today’s market.
Vornado’s $2B vision transforms midcentury towers into a vibrant, amenity-rich destination in Midtown Manhattan.
As the recent cultural and real estate realignment called “The Great Mall Sorting” continues, A-plus malls are thriving, while the B and C properties are gradually being repurposed, reused, and completely rethought, according to architect Sean Slater, senior principal at the architectural firm RDC in San Diego.
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As the world’s population continues to grow, there will be a need for increased urbanization to accommodate more people. The question is how and when should urban planners decide to regenerate, when to expand and when to create new cities, for sustainable growth and development of future cities, since each approach comes with its benefits and its drawbacks.
Providing end-users with a choice that originates from a binary view—either indoor or outdoor—is no longer enough.
Strict one-use-per-parcel zoning rules have long limited the growth of mixed-use projects in Spain, but the builders of a new office, residential, and commercial project in Madrid hope their example will pave the way for other integrated projects.
Shopping malls, the once-bustling hubs of commerce and community, are now facing an uncertain future in light of relentless urbanization and population growth. But as the city evolves, so too must these giants. At the 2023 ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto, industry leaders tackled this very question in the panel titled “Reimagining the Mall: The Final Urban Frontier.”
In a report that emphasized upward mobility and inclusion in Indiana’s second largest city, a ULI Advisory Services panel for the Electric Works redevelopment project in Fort Wayne, Indiana, focused on the economic importance of being a destination with an “open tent.” That means having real and stated plans that emphasize the inclusion of the entire region.
The Real Estate Economic Forecast, produced by the ULI Center for Real Estate Economics and Capital Markets, is based on a survey conducted in April 2023 of 41 economists and analysts at 37 leading real estate organizations. According to the survey, the U.S. economy will slow in 2023 and 2024, with recovery expected to begin in 2025. The real estate market will follow suit, with flat to negative results over the next two years, followed by mostly positive news in 2025.
Four teams, representing Harvard University, the University of Virginia, and the University of California, Berkeley, have been selected as finalists in the 21st annual ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, an event that challenges teams of graduate students to devise a comprehensive design and development plan for a real-world urban site.
Teng Chye Khoo, fellow at the Centre for Liveable Cities and chair of ULI’s Asia Pacific region, presented his views on the lessons underpinning Singapore’s stronghold as one of the world’s most livable cities at a recent ULI Australia event.
Launched in fall 2020, Delve is an evaluation tool that uses artificial intelligence, Geographic Information System, and user input to optimize real estate development by Sidewalk Lab. Currently available on an engagement model, Delve pairs users with a team of consultants to generate highest and best use design options and help find design solutions for the nuances of complex projects. An updated version will be released later this year.
Real-time virtual models of objects, ranging from a building to an entire city, are an emerging concept that has the potential to transform the built environment and the real estate industry in numerous ways, according to the technology’s proponents.
In Denver’s Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood, an interesting addition to the urban fabric has emerged over the past five years in the form of activated streets and alleyways that serve as a connective tissue for art, entertainment, culture, and gathering. In early October, ULI Colorado’s Building Healthy Places committee hosted a panel to discuss our new age of activated alleyways.
ULI MEMBER–ONLY CONTENT: How can urban cores rebound from the pandemic? Members of ULI’s Urban Revitalization councils discuss the pandemic’s potential long-term effects on development in urban cores, opportunities for creative redevelopment, steps that municipalities can take, ways to enhance resilience in urban cores, and other trends.
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This morning, 2021 ULI Fall meeting attendees toured the area surrounding one of the oldest professional ballparks in the United States, Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which has been home to the Chicago Cubs baseball team for more than a century. When the Ricketts family took over Cubs ownership in 2009, it decided not only to rehabilitate the aging stadium, but also to turn a former parking lot next door into a mixed-use entertainment district bringing office, retail, and hotel uses to the area, as well as much-needed open space called Gallagher Way.
The ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing has announced 16 finalists for this year’s Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Awards, which honor exemplary developments that ensure housing affordability for people with a range of incomes. The award recognizes efforts by the development community to increase the supply of housing affordable to households earning less than 120 percent of the area median income.
Three San Francisco developers discuss focusing on “what would work” in order to create the city’s Mission Bay mixed-use development, during the WLI session at the 2020 ULI Virtual Fall Meeting
Eight years after a ULI Advisory Services panel gathered in the shadow of Pikes Peak to brainstorm about revitalizing Colorado Springs, the recent opening of the $91 million U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in the southwest corner of downtown represents an important cornerstone of the city’s urban renewal effort while bolstering its identity as “Olympic City, USA.”
A tall mixed-use tower without parking replaces a small Philadelphia parking lot, while its multimodal urban passageway connects two streets.
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Panelists at the 2020 ULI Tampa Trends event said that smart parking and traffic sensors are already being incorporated into large projects, and Microsoft is funding the use of artificial intelligence at the University of South Florida’s medical school.
By the end of 2019, the first families will move into new, million-dollar townhouses at Edge-on-Hudson, a $1 billion development that will eventually bring more than a thousand new residences to Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Incentivized by city parking policies, private developers provide fewer parking spaces or increase density in new projects.
