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Joseph Stecher is a member of ULI and has invested in real estate globally as a principal investor at General Motors Pension Fund, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Today he has his own capital placement agency, Candlewood Investors, and is also a senior adviser to RealConnex, a real estate technology startup. In this opinion piece, he shares how leaders of real estate firms can develop best practices to blend technology into current business practices

The long-predicted generational shift in the hotel industry is starting to happen, according to speakers at ULI’s recent “Hotel and Resort Development: Next Wave of Innovation” conference in La Costa, California. Baby boomers are growing older and millennials are developing as a buying group, forcing developers and operators to rethink developments. Everyone is racing to determine what works—and what doesn’t—as projects look to adjust to the latest trends, speakers said.

Experts in housing discuss prospects for this year, the preferences of millennial buyers, the importance of providing communities with a strong sense of place, strategies for making homes more affordable, and other trends.

Panelists at ULI’s 2017 Carolinas Meeting in Charlotte shared some of the technology trends they are seeing in North America and abroad, some of which are not yet popularly known, with the potential to massively transform the way land is used.

In a survey released in January by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, Boston ranked third in desirability by foreign investors among U.S. cities (behind New York and Los Angeles). ULI Boston/New England recently hosted a program in which panelists discussed the thought processes of the leadership of the companies and investors who are wagering heavily on the continued success of the region.

A recent ULI Northwest event featured presentations and panel discussion on what it will take to bring the next generation of shoppers into retail locations. Starbucks and Nordstrom executives presented insights on how their businesses are evolving.

Amid speculation about the ways autonomous vehicles may upend current ways of living—and require fundamental changes to the way real estate and critical transportation-related infrastructure are
developed—voters in Washington state’s Puget Sound region approved tax increases in November to fund a $53.8 billion, 25-year program for expanding light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit.

The latest issue of the magazine is now available for download in the Urban Landapp. The cover package for this issue is titled “Dallas: Restless for growth in north Texas.” Other topics include “Saving Energy: Inside the Empire State Building,” “Asia Pacific: Capital on the Move,” and “Europe: Brexit Sinks In.”

A new ULI program that helps office tenants design and manage their spaces to reduce energy consumption could help the real estate industry reduce emissions that are driving climate change. But at the program’s rollout at ULI’s 2016 Fall Meeting in Dallas, panelists said that the new ULI Tenant Energy Optimization Program is likely to have a more far-reaching impact than that of many previous environmental initiatives because it offers a compelling, well-documented business case that energy efficiency can generate a lucrative return on investment.

During a session at the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting, panelists involved in the ULI Healthy Corridorsproject discussed strategies for transforming unsafe, unattractive, and poorly connected commercial corridors into thriving places that further the goal of creating healthy and economically vibrant communities.