For more information, contact:  Robert Krueger at 202-624-7051

WASHINGTON (November 19, 2014) – The Urban Land Institute (ULI) announced today that the mayors of Boston, Omaha, Pittsburgh and Seattle have been selected to participate in the 2015 class of fellows for the Rose Center for Public Leadership. The mayor of each city will lead a team of three fellows and a coordinator, who together will select a local land use challenge for which they will receive technical assistance from faculty experts assembled by ULI and their peers from the other three fellowship cities.

The Daniel Rose Center Fellowship program is the flagship program of the Rose Center, established in 2008 with a grant from ULI Foundation Governor Daniel Rose to encourage and support excellence in land use decision making by local governments. The Rose Center seeks to foster creative, efficient, practical and sustainable land use policies by providing public officials with access to information, best practices, peer networks and other resources. The Fellowship’s program of work includes a study tour of another U.S. or foreign city, a working retreat, and study visits to each of the four fellowship cities.

Earlier this year, ULI and the National League of Cities (NLC), which collectively represent the world’s foremost real estate professionals and the nation’s most distinguished municipal leaders, signed a partnership agreement to guide the oversight and operations of the Rose Center for Public Leadership. The agreement takes effect January 1, 2015. The new class of fellows and Rose Center Executive Director Jess Zimbabwe are attending the National League of Cities 2014 Congress of Cities and Exposition this week in Austin, Texas.

The 2015 Rose Center Fellowship teams are as follows:

• Boston: Mayor Martin J. Walsh ; Sheila Dillon, chief of housing and director of the department of neighborhood development, City of Boston; John FitzGerald, senior project manager, Boston Redevelopment Authority; and Joyce Linehan, chief of policy, City of Boston Mayor’s Office. They will be supported by their team coordinator Danny Green, policy analyst, City of Boston Mayor’s Office.

• Omaha: Mayor Jean Stothert; Cassie Seagren, deputy chief of staff for economic development, City of Omaha Mayor’s Office; Bob Stubbe, director of the public works department, City of Omaha; and James Thele, director of the planning department, City of Omaha. They will be supported by their team coordinator Steven Jensen, a local planning and urban design consultant and retired Omaha planning director.

• Pittsburgh: Mayor Bill Peduto; Karen Abrams, manager of community and diversity affairs, Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh; Ray Gastil, director of the department of city planning, City of Pittsburgh; and Presley Gillespie, president, Neighborhood Allies, Pittsburgh. They will be supported by their team coordinator Matt Barron, policy manager, City of Pittsburgh Mayor’s Office.

• Seattle: Mayor Ed Murray; Robert Feldstein, director of the office of policy innovation, City of Seattle; Scott Kubly, director of the department of transportation, City of Seattle; and Kathy Nyland, senior policy advisor for the office of policy innovation, City of Seattle. They will be supported by their team coordinator Kheng Mei Tan, senior policy advisor for the office of policy innovation, City of Seattle.

To assist the fellowship city teams, ULI has assembled a team of eight urban development and design leaders from around the nation who will be serving as their faculty advisers: Laura Aldrete, senior supervising planner at Parsons Brinckerhoff’s PlaceMaking Group in Denver; Andre Brumfield, regional director of planning and design at Gensler in Chicago; Peter Cavaluzzi, principal at EE&K/Perkins Eastman in New York City; Antonio Fiol-Silva, principal at Wallace Roberts and Todd in Philadelphia; Nadine Fogarty, vice president at Strategic Economics in Berkeley, California; Calvin Gladney, managing partner at Mosaic Urban Partners in Washington, DC; M.D. “Mike” Higbee, managing director of DC Development Group in Indianapolis; and Bert Mathews, president of the Mathews Company in Nashville. Two faculty advisers will be assigned to work with each city.

“In the six years of the Rose Center Fellowship program, mayoral teams have been effective in collaborating and sharing knowledge to help solve the land use challenges of our nation’s leading metropolitan areas,” said ULI Global Chief Executive Officer Patrick L. Phillips. “Cities are the heart of our country’s economy, serving as hubs for human capital and innovation. We are excited to work with NLC and the new class of Rose fellows to highlight creative approaches and solutions that other communities can replicate to grow in healthy, prosperous, and sustainable ways.”

“These four cities are working at the cutting edge of the biggest development issues facing cities,” said Zimbabwe. “In addition to the valuable insights gained by the fellows during this year, ULI and NLC members will benefit from the practical know-how that emerges when these city leaders get together to share their ideas and expertise.”

Since its inception, the Rose Center has worked with mayors’ teams in 20 cities across the United States: Austin; Charlotte, North Carolina.; Detroit; Hartford, Connecticut; Honolulu; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri.; Louisville, Kentucky; Minneapolis; Memphis; Nashville; Oakland, California.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Oregon.; Providence, Rhode Island.; Sacramento, California.; Tacoma, Washington; and Tampa, Florida. In previous years, it has addressed issues such as revitalizing obsolete industrial corridors with flexible land uses to attract new employers; integrating anchor institutions into the surrounding community; and improving pedestrian and bicycle connections between downtown neighborhoods.

About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute (uli.org) is a global nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has nearly 33,000 members representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.