Search

While the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) region has been highly successful in drawing corporate relocations to the area, city leaders, speaking at a ULI North Texas event, said that the main weakness in Amazon’s eye for the e-commerce giant’s second headquarters (HQ2) was an insufficient amount of existing and available talent.

Alternative lenders increased their market share in the commercial real estate debt sector in 2018, panelists said at a ULI North Texas event in March. That trend is likely to continue this year as competition among all types of debt providers heats up capital markets.

Internationally acclaimed artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, whose rise to prominence began with his use of art and culture to revive underserved neighborhoods in his hometown of Chicago, was named the 2018 recipient of the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development at the Institute’s 2018 Fall Meeting in Boston. Gates spoke with Urban Landabout his work, his career, and the guiding principles that motivate him.

Property developers and owners are accelerating the pace of adoption of new technology, introducing new solutions to enhance the customer and tenant experience and to improve operational efficiency. A discussion at the ULI Singapore Annual Conference in February brought together senior executives from leading regional players to discuss their experiences with implementing technology in their organizations.

Nashville’s new boutique hotels capitalize on a sometimes bawdy history, art and artifacts—and even a fictional persona.

The urgency for organizations to transform themselves in the face of technology-fueled disruption has been a key challenge in many industries. In the banking sector, incumbent players are dealing with the emergence of financial technology, or fintech, firms that threaten them in a range of business segments. In her keynote address at a ULI Singapore event, Tan Su Shan, managing director and group head, institutional banking, DBS, shared with the audience some insights and lessons learned from the journey so far.

ULI Los Angeles, together with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), engaged the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and the Los Angeles Planning and Land Use Society to study seven half-mile (0.8 km) transit station areas in Los Angeles County in order to determine the positive effects that more development near transit might have on transit ridership, as well as on sustainability, economic development, health, and quality of life in Los Angeles.

At a panel discussion during ULI’s Fort Lauderdale Emerges conference in February, Mike Jackson, longtime chief executive officer of AutoNation, was joined by Vinnie Viola, chairman and owner of the NHL’s Florida Panthers and chairman emeritus of Virtu Financial, to discuss Fort Lauderdale’s place among America’s most important business communities. With moderator Bob Swindell, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, the pair discussed the appeal and consistent challenges facing Fort Lauderdale’s ascension as a major business hub.

As we head to Nashville for our 2019 Spring Meeting, I am encouraged and enthused about the progress being made at ULI to improve the member experience. Our initial efforts will be on display at the meeting, with more member-informed, interactive programming designed to foster a broader exchange of ideas and knowledge as well as more member-to-member connections. The event, which follows a highly successful Midwinter Trustees Meeting, Europe Conference, and Asia Pacific Convivium held this winter, will serve as additional confirmation of ULI’s status as the gold standard for real estate organizations.

When the Octopus card was introduced to Hong Kong 22 years ago, it quietly revolutionized transportation in the city. It certainly made the city “smarter” and easier to navigate, both quicker and with a lot less spare change in your pocket. But what steps can a city such as Hong Kong take now to ensure it remains relevant in another two decades’ time?