Since Airbnb began to disrupt the U.S. hospitality sector, industry leaders have been thinking about ways to attract previously underserved customers. A number of recently built hotels and resorts combine the space and amenities of a private home with high-end amenities, concierge service, and curated experiences. A 2017 ULI Fall Meeting session presented two recently introduced concepts with distinctly different target markets and price points.

After years of steady growth, the hotel industry is bracing for a tough year. “Growth and revenue are slowing down,” Bruce Baltin, managing director of CBRE Hotels, told executives and experts gathered for ULI’s “Hotel and Resort Development: Next Wave of Innovation” conference in La Costa, California, held in June. “It’s hit a peak. We think we’re at a plateau.”

As competition for the dollars of vacationers and business travelers ratchets up, hotel companies are on a never-ending search for ways to differentiate themselves. Guests are looking for uniqueness, local flavor and history, and bespoke experiences that they can capture and share instantly through social media networks, according to a panel of hotel industry experts at the recent ULI Florida Summit in Miami.

This year, global investors should be keeping an eye on politics in China, Japan’s outbound investment, and the logistics sector, said a panel of senior industry figures speaking at the recent ULI Asia Pacific Summit 2017.

There was a time before Prohibition when St. Louis had more than 40 breweries. By the 1980s, however, that number had dwindled to just two. Today, experts speaking at a ULI panel said St. Louis’s smaller brewery scene is again thriving, with 50 separate breweries operating locally.

Commercialized marijuana is big business and is expanding as a new asset class at an astronomical rate, according to a ULI Spring Meeting panel of industry investors, operators, and legal experts on the state of the cannabis business and real estate opportunities being created in the sector. Twenty-eight states have legalized the sale of medical marijuana, and eight states plus the District of Columbia allow recreational marijuana to some degree.

Curating and creating great spaces is at the heart of what industry players in the built environment sector do every day. Placemaking is the “art and science” of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Can transit-integrated development like RUS Bus in Raleigh, North Carolina, help our cities thrive for the long haul?

Internationally acclaimed Chicago architect and Studio Gang founder, known for bringing a sustainable approach to tall buildings, to receive the prestigious ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development.

Recently, three new senior housing apartment towers opened in the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon.

As California pushes toward a clean energy future, the city of San José has emerged as a leader in building electrification, offering valuable lessons for other cities nationwide. With residential buildings representing the largest source of natural gas use in the city, San José’s initiatives aim to reshape how these buildings are powered while prioritizing community needs, equity, and affordable housing. In 2022, ULI partnered with San Jose on an Advisory Services Panel (ASP) to inform this policy direction for multifamily buildings of all types. The aim of the ASP was to support the city in enabling property owners to step up their electrification retrofit efforts, encourage the adoption of on-site solar and batteries, and move the market forward.

The U.S. economy did very well in 2024, said Barbara Denham, lead economist for Oxford Economics, and the forecast for the coming year is more of the same—both in New York City and across North America. However, in presenting Oxford’s favorable economic forecast for 2025 at a ULI New York event last month, Denham also noted many caveats ahead of the incoming U.S. administration.

For many who live outside Southern California, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles is remembered for the well-documented riots of 1965, a six-day period of civil unrest that brought 34 fatalities, numerous injuries, and widespread arrests.

St. Louis, long known as the Gateway to the West, is rapidly becoming the gateway to the region’s future. Diverse communities have begun working together to make the city a major hub for cutting-edge innovations in aerospace, agriculture, finance, transportation, biosciences, entertainment, and much more. The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership is dedicated to finding economic development partners who can help companies thrive in greater St. Louis, regardless of their size, and at the same time help those companies to deliver new opportunities into under resourced neighborhoods.

West Main, a 1,030,000-square-foot (95,690 sq m) office, retail, and mixed-use project, is the new home to some of Amazon’s 12,000-person workforce in Bellevue, Washington. The three-building project, designed by Graphite Design Group in collaboration with Compton Design Office for Vulcan Real Estate, is transforming this city neighboring Seattle to the east.

Michael Spotts, a senior visiting research fellow at ULI’s Terwiliger Center for Housing and head of Neighborhood Fundamentals, recently appeared on the Talking Headways podcast. Spotts chats with us about takeaways from the Shaw Symposium on Urban Community Issues, the definition of infrastructure, and the importance of taking a systems approach to important interconnected topics like transportation, education, and health care.

The multifamily sector is successfully weathering the pandemic and construction continues to boom, leading the commercial real estate industry’s overall recovery. But development doesn’t appear even across multifamily market segments.

A Utah developer includes townhouses to densify one block in the downtown of a new community southwest of Salt Lake City.

In addition to Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, an enormous amount of movement has occurred in the grocery sector in the past year, as regional chains expand into new markets and European brands enter the United States.

The growing economic impact of millennials, growing demand for dining, and increasing interest from international brands are transforming the American retail real estate landscape.

Ten remade shopping centers exemplify opportunities for transformation.