Property Types

Trends are neither destiny nor gospel. They are guideposts identified from the collective experience of many professionals within an industry. In the resort, recreation, and tourism industry, numerous trends identified through experience and expectations are emerging to influence how and where people will buy and use resort real estate. Society is changing fast, and the economic conditions of the past two years have created much uncertainly. But what is discernible is that current trends are focused on valuedriven buyers, downsized purchases for personal use, and scalability.

Ten renovation and retrofit projects make over structure to meet the needs of the contemporary hospitality industry and tap the place-specific power of older buildings.

In 2025, the country’s industrial market is experiencing a rebalancing in the wake of surging demand and record new supply that marked the early pandemic years. New opportunities in fast-growing markets are emerging, and demand drivers are shifting. New space demand will grow the most, especially for small-bay industrial assets, according to a Q3 2025 report from the business advisory and accounting firm Plante Moran.

Birmingham’s Urban Supply hints at what the next chapter of downtown life could look like. Once-quiet brick warehouses are being reimagined into patios, storefronts, and gathering spaces along a new pedestrian alley.

What trends are shaping the future of the industrial sector? Four experts from ULI’s Industrial and Office Park Development Council talk about the industrial submarkets and property types that offer the greatest opportunities, challenges developers face in bringing new projects to market, ways artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are reshaping the sector, tenant priorities, and other key trends.

Fighting back at online retailers, shopping venues focus on the intersection of needs and desires.

Housing will be the biggest challenge for the coming wave of aging baby boomers, said speakers at a recent Atlantic forum in Washington, D.C.. With neither adequate zoning nor a sufficient stock of “age-appropriate” housing, America is not prepared for the predicted surge in the number of senior citizens, panelists said.

When we talk about mixed-use development, we don’t typically have in mind a compound featuring bail bondsmen, pawn shops, and garages that specialize in muffler repair.

Positive news for Greater Philadelphia going into 2020 includes job growth, a growing population of young people, strong demand for apartments, and a booming, new biotechnology business, said panelists at a ULI Philadelphia event.

How did Reston Town Center, set some 20 miles (32 km) from the nation’s capital in the leafy suburbs of Northern Virginia, generate premium real estate values and become desirable enough to compete for the best tenants? It is a story dating back more than 30 years, the product of critical decisions made by a host of real estate professionals, public officials, planners, and designers.

As one of the fastest growing and most populous metropolitan areas in the United States, the Phoenix metro area has seen some 40,000 apartments built since 2010, with demand and prices continuing to rise. Panelists speaking at the ULI Arizona Trends Day in Phoenix provided a glimpse of how different product types are filling needs for the housing-strapped region.

The Washington, D.C., region is shedding its reputation as a stodgy government town and emerging as a forward-thinking mecca for technology firms and young professionals. With eyes on attracting projects such as Amazon’s second headquarters, area landlords, brokers, architects, and economic development organizations are teaming up to ink leases with both high-profile and homegrown tech firms.

Hong Kong has surpassed London’s West End as the world’s most expensive office market, according to new research from Cushman & Wakefield. Using proprietary data, the report ranks occupancy costs per workstation as well as workplace densities for newly developed or refurbished office space globally. At a global level, the average annual cost per workstation rose by 1.5 percent over the past 12 months.

Four takeaways on the use of data science to measure professionals’ interactions in new office designs based on the new Boston Consulting Group workplace at New York City’s 10 Hudson Yards.

While its sustainable qualities are attracting developers and architects, so are the speed and cost-efficiency with which mass-timber buildings can be delivered to market, noted an expert panel at the recent ULI Washington Real Estate Trends conference, sometimes shaving 30 to 90 days off a construction schedule.

Real estate investment trusts that specialize in the multifamily sector, particularly those with an exposure to the high-end sector in New York City, continue to struggle in the face of new construction. Plus, interest rate survey data from Trepp.

Seattle developers are trying to keep pace with the demand for urban living with an explosion of new multifamily projects.

The National Retail Federation predicts a record-breaking 2025 holiday season, with U.S. sales for November and December projected to grow between 3.7 percent and 4.2 percent—pushing total holiday sales past $1 trillion for the first time. Yet there also are signs that consumers are nervous; that mood, plus accounting for inflation, could leave holiday spending relatively flat.

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

For decades, civic leaders have tried to revitalize Market Street, San Francisco’s central thoroughfare, only to see their efforts founder. “I sometimes call it the great white whale of San Francisco,” says Eric Tao, managing partner at L37 Development in San Francisco and co-chair of ULI San Francisco. “Every new mayor, every new planning director, every new economic development director has chased that white whale.” This year, however, an international competition of ideas hosted and run by ULI San Francisco, with support from the ULI Foundation, generated fresh momentum for reimagining the boulevard. The competition drew 173 submissions from nine countries and sparked new conversations about the future of downtown San Francisco.