Property Types
Hotels and Resorts
With an inclination for hiring the young and entrusting them with much responsibility, Charles Fraser employed many budding real estate professionals who eventually became accomplished leaders in both the industry and ULI, including four who became ULI chairmen.
In July of 2012, the community of Mammoth Lakes in California filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. The third most-visited ski area in the United States, the community is fighting its way back from the brink.
Far from the gloomy tone of last year’s discussion on the same topic, lifestyle resort developers at ULI’s 2013 Spring Meeting in San Diego were saying: “Viva Mexico!” and touting the success of developments from Virginia to Montana to Hawaii.
Industrial
A sustainably designed, adaptive-use, urban food factory in Portland, Oregon, helps a neighborhood suffering urban decay, foreclosures, and job losses.
As the balance sheets of corporate America are getting stronger and companies that can lease or buy are trading up to Class A industrial properties, the Class B and C buildings have to be rehabilitated to compete and to provide faster delivery. Hear from experts about a number of Southern California projects that transformed industrial properties.
U.S. East Coast and Gulf ports are upgrading facilities in anticipation of supersized ships transiting the Panama Canal in 2014, while some smaller port cities are strategically positioned to fight for their share of the new business.
Mixed-Use
A panel discussion at the recent ULI Europe Real Estate Forum in Dublin examined how investors are driving demand for and managing mixed-use districts and buildings. Speakers said that rather than many small and varied projects, they have concentrated on fewer and larger high-return projects.
A former Sears, Roebuck & Company distribution center and retail location in the Crosstown neighborhood of Memphis with historic landmark status has evolved into a mixed-use project with retail, health and educational space, plus apartments.
The area surrounding the historic baseball stadium has been transfigured by new residential skyscrapers where fast-food restaurants once stood, in addition to high-tech health companies and a market concept popular in Portugal.
Multifamily
The opportunities presented by artificial intelligence (AI) today seem unlimited. During the early innings of this exciting new technology, the phrases generative AI and machine learning are often being used interchangeably. In the multifamily industry, practical applications of AI are primarily based on machine learning, a subset of AI that uses algorithms to learn automatically from big data to identify patterns and make intelligent predictions.
Under the leadership of Chief Investment Officer Wes Fuller, Greystar, a vertically integrated real estate firm that owns, operates, and develops multifamily, student, and senior housing, began investing in international markets in 2013, including in Europe, Asia, and South America. The company’s robust institutional investment management platform now has a global presence in 249 markets.
Developers of middle-income projects can’t use subsidy programs such as federal low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs) to finance their plans. Middle-income developments also often don’t earn enough in rent to support conventional construction loans or attract equity investors.
Office
One of New York City’s busiest corridors is set for one of its biggest transformations in years. The area around Manhattan’s Penn Station has long been considered a sore spot for the city, as top-tier retail stores moved to more flourishing areas and local buildings became outdated. But now, with a billion-dollar plan by a New York state agency underway to revitalize public transit infrastructure in and around Penn Station, there is serious momentum for the Midtown neighborhood, which has stalled in growth as surrounding neighborhoods have evolved.
Tattooed, tanned, and tousled, 48-year-old Stefan Quinn Soloviev looks like an athletic nerd who stepped out of a Mad Max film, but don’t let his appearance fool you. Soloviev is one of the largest landowners in the United States—number 21, according to Landreport.com—with a portfolio that includes some of Manhattan’s most coveted properties.
Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules requiring public companies to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures. The rules phase in over time, requiring the largest companies or public investor shares to begin making climate risk disclosures in 2025.
Residental
With an unemployment rate of 2.6 percent, a diverse economy anchored by health and education institutions, and a flourishing tech and life sciences sector, Greater Boston appears poised for continued growth, even with the specter of a potential recession on the horizon. But, like many other growing U.S. cities, the demand for housing far outstrips the supply. Much of the expanding workforce is in danger of being priced out of the market, as are many longtime residents.
Using available land is a key strategy for filling the District of Columbia’s need for affordable housing units, Mayor Muriel Bowser said at ULI’s Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. Bowser recently articulated her vision to construct 36,000 additional housing units in the District by 2025.
No single solution exists among the efforts to deliver attainable and affordable housing in a country where home prices continue to escalate significantly and the dream of homeownership is out of reach of millions of households, an expert panel told attendees at ULI’s 2019 Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Retail
As aging retail continue to evolve, one increasingly popular trend has been to redesign malls as town centers—recalling a time when such commercial districts were the heart and soul of a community. Mall–to–town center retrofits are emerging throughout the nation, especially in suburban communities, where pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use environments are highly attractive to millennials now raising families.
Consumers have kept a steady foot on the gas this year. A record-high 197 million consumers shopped in stores or online over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). The NRF forecasts that holiday sales will grow between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent, with total retail spending in the United States falling between $979.5 billion and $989 billion during November and December. That forecast also is consistent with NRF’s annual U.S. sales growth—between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent—for 2024.
After a quiet first half of 2024, CMBS originations increased 59 percent in Q3 on a year-over-year basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Quarterly Survey.