The commercial real estate sector must adjust to a trend in which corporate tenants increasingly see buildings as tools to recruit and retain talent and boost workforce productivity, panelists said at the ULI Spring Meeting in Nashville. Real estate developers need to focus on designing innovative, customized spaces and offering amenities that help their tenants meet their strategic goals concerning human capital.

Speaking at the ULI Spring Meeting in Nashville, bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham said that as far back in America’s history as the Revolutionary War, Americans have been able to change their minds and switch sides on many issues. “America was founded on the idea that we could think our way through problems,” he said.

The civil rights struggle of 50 years ago—Nashville was the first southern city to desegregate public services, setting an example for activists throughout the South—continues today, but now it is more focused on economic equality. That was the main takeaway from a ULI Spring Meeting session during which panelists discussed how much the civil rights struggle has achieved and how much further it has to go.

The U.S. economy continues to perform strongly nearly a decade into the current recovery and China appears to be bouncing back from a slowdown, but weakness in Europe is a cause for concern, a prominent business journalist told an audience at the ULI Spring Meeting in Nashville. The U.S. GDP growth trend is still solid, said Kathleen Hays, global economics and policy editor for Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio, who has covered the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve for more than 30 years. “The bottom line is the economy is still growing and it’s still creating jobs,” Hays said.

The United States’s economic expansion is expected to continue over the next three years, with growth moderating by 2021, according to the 15th annual ULI Real Estate Economic Forecast covering 27 economic and real estate indicators.

A new generation of software platforms could do everything from monitoring buildings’ energy and water use in real time to providing tenant workforces with on-site access to medical treatment services, said panelists at ULI’s Spring Meeting.

Nashville is evolving from “a nice small city to an emerging, medium-sized city,” said speakers at the 2019 ULI Spring Meeting, in part because of the city’s willingness to invest in its downtown through public-private partnerships.

In remarks made at the Spring Meeting’s opening general session, ULI Americas Chairman Jack Chandler shared thoughts on the importance of the Institute’s Global Strategic Plan in strengthening member engagement and impact. The plan, which is based on feedback from members on how to improve ULI, is designed to “create a more rewarding and personalized member experience, and allow initiatives in areas such as affordable housing, community resilience, and industry diversity to be scaled up for broader application and greater effect,” Chandler said.

Civic leaders, including public officials and private developers, must be proactive and prepared to take risks if they want to develop their cities for the new economy, ULI Senior Fellow Tom Murphy said at the ULI Spring Meeting in Nashville. Cities are facing unprecedented changes in a variety of arenas, including cultural, technological, economic, and demographic. At a session titled “Smart Choices in a Changing World,” ULI’s senior fellows debated ways that cities can thrive in a new economy while creating a sustainable workforce for future needs.

Nashville Yards, a project that is intended to weave together all the strands of the city’s development boom, will include a new concert venue, a much needed luxury hotel, and a bold new public green space.