The meeting began with a presentation from Lyneir Richardson, CEO of the Chicago TREND Corporation and Executive Director of the Rutgers Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. Lyneir spoke about creating economic development opportunities and community ownership of shopping center projects within communities of color, and how those issues can apply to the cohort’s projects.

The group also reviewed status updates on all the projects of the cohort.

Baton Rouge: ULI Louisiana recently completed a symposium focused on Broadband and 5G access, which was hosted in part to form background for a later Technical Assistance Panel. The TAP is currently scheduled for July, and the final report is expected in September.

Cincinnati: ULI Cincinnati has held three of their six workshop sessions on the CROWN urban trail loop. The sessions have covered affordable housing, trail development, and financing.

Dallas-Fort Worth: ULI DFW completed its TAP in June, and the City of Forth Worth has approved $2.9M to implement key ULI recommendations supporting a broader $300M affordable housing development. The final report is in progress and will be published by the end of the year.

San Antonio: ULI San Antonio’s mobility hub project has made significant progress in recent months. They have selected criteria for defining and rating potential mobility hubs, and are working towards the mapping needed to determine 3-5 candidate sites, with public meetings to be held in June.

St. Paul: ULI Minnesota is engaging in a series of community workshops through May and June, in conjunction with a parallel series of workshops hosted by ReConnect Rondo. ULI Minnesota is working on developing a People-Public-Private-Philanthropic model around the Rondo Land Bridge, and a final report is expected in the fall of 2021.

Toronto: ULI Toronto is building on the work completed during the Uptown Brampton and Eglinton Crosstown workshops with three more workshops to be completed: Markham Centre in June, Yonge Subway Extension in September, and Ontario Line also in September. The final Report is expected November 2021.

The meetings of the Curtis first year cohort will continue on a bi-monthly basis until the winter of 2021, focusing on having discussion and building capacity and network among the local project teams, as well as a community of practice that can work together on shared challenges and opportunities. Future cohort meetings will continue to bring guest speakers to provide additional perspective to these meetings. The next meeting will be held in late September.

For more information, visit the Curtis Infrastructure Initiative website, or contact us here.