Knowledge Finder
Conducting Technical Assistance
Engaging ULI’s global network allows the Curtis Infrastructure Initiative to provide technical assistance and capacity building to local communities to ensure infrastructure investments are equitable, resilient, and enhance long-term community value.
District Council Grant Opportunity
ULI District Council infrastructure grants address common infrastructure challenges where public/private partnerships facilitate local actions, policies, and practices to enable more equitable and resilient investments that enhance long-term real estate and community value. The selected projects focus on creating impact through the implementation of a plan of action resulting in outcomes such as shifts in policy and practice, change in community/industry prioritization, change in design/planning, and/or new infrastructure projects.
Approximately $225,000 has been distributed to ULI district councils leveraging more than $430,000 in local matching dollars. This has resulted in more than $95 million in direct impact that is expected to only grow as the return on infrastructure investment takes many years to be fully realized.
Capacity Building Reports
The Curtis Infrastructure Initiative helps align the significant body of work ULI has produced related to infrastructure within topics such as creating healthy and equitable places, adapting and mitigating to climate change, increasing housing choices and affordability, and practical approaches for project implementation.
Knowledge Finder
District Council Reports
About the District Council Infrastructure Grant Cohort
The Curtis Infrastructure Initiative has partnered with 10 ULI district councils on 12 projects across North America to provide technical assistance as part of a cohort that meets regularly over the course of a year. This cohort of ULI members and staff, local leaders, and other global experts identify key issues, share best practices, and provide updates on projects to support each other in addressing complex infrastructure challenges.
The 2020-2021 cohort worked to build capacity to reconnect divided communities—physically, socially, and digitally and the 2021-2022 cohort builds on the previous year’s work to better tie infrastructure and land use decisions together.
ULI Baltimore
ULI Baltimore is supporting equitable pedestrian and bike/scooter paths/trails that ‘interconnect’ residents to each other especially those within neighborhoods that reside in what Morgan State University professor, Dr. Lawrence Brown, coined as “The Black Butterfly.” The goal being to interconnect them to Baltimore’s larger Greenway Trails loop, enabling community revitalization, investment, and increased access to jobs for many communities throughout the city.
ULI Cincinnati
ULI Cincinnati conducted six workshops to accelerate the proposed 34-mile urban trail loop called “CROWN” to improve equity and development of affordable housing in underserved areas. The District Council and partner TriState Trails sees the completion of this trail and its access as an opportunity toward improving global competitiveness and economic mobility.
View the Completing the CROWN: The Trail Towards Equity and Opportunity TAP report.
ULI Dallas-Fort Worth
ULI Dallas-Fort Worth conducted a technical assistance panel to recommend infrastructure priorities within Fort Worth’s historically Black Stop Six neighborhood as part of the city’s match for a $35-million U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant. The project engaged with leaders and community voices in determining the best way to allocate the local funds for infrastructure to support equitable investment.
Click here to learn more about project outcomes.
ULI Indiana
ULI Indiana will work with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization and a coalition of private and public sector stake-holders to document the spatial mismatch of available jobs and workers, with a particular focus on addressing employment equity by overcoming transportation barriers.
Click here to view the Technical Assistance Panel presentation.
ULI Louisiana
ULI Louisiana conducted a technical assistance panel within Baton Rouge’s Plank Road corridor to identify opportunities for free or reduced cost internet access. This builds on efforts by the city to implement the recommended plans within the Imagine Plank Road small area plan as well as support the construction of the region’s first Bus Rapid Transit line. A statewide symposium on broadband implementation was hosted as part of this engagement.
View the Plank Road: Bridging the Digital Divide publication.
Photo By Laura Rudich
ULI Los Angeles
ULI Los Angeles and the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) are seeking best practices and an implementable set of tools and strategies for supportive physical infrastructure to build housing affordability and scale up development of publicly owned land (e.g., TOD, upzoning). This will support the development of programs by SCAG to disperse an estimated $100 million in funds to invest in utility infrastructure, vehicle mile traveled reductions, and other housing supportive programs.
ULI Minnesota
ULI Minnesota partnered with ReConnect Rondo and MnDOT to hold a series of workshops to identify policies, financial models, and community benefit principles through a Public, Private, Philanthropic and People (P4) Model that would result from the development of the Rondo Community Land Bridge covering I-94. Click here to view the funding model presentation day.
View the Rondo 4P Funding Model: A Pathway Leading to Restoring a Lost Community publication.
ULI Philadelphia
ULI Philadelphia will work with the North Broad Renaissance to establish an Equitable Maintenance Task Force to develop a strategy for low-income communities to receive sustainable funding and resources that help keep their public and open spaces well maintained through the ebbs and flows of community investment and disinvestment. This is an issue that is identified within technical assistance panels but rarely specifically explored.
ULI San Antonio
ULI San Antonio convened a task force to explore innovative and equitable mobility services to maximize transportation tax revenue, reduce vehicle miles traveled and expand first and last mile solutions within the VIA Metropolitan Transit system. This partnership was mentioned as a model for collaboration as part of the Federal Transit Administration’s America’s Open and Transit’s Open Final Report. Phase II will build on the task force’s recommendations to build consensus to deploy a network of mobility hubs.
View the Mobility Hubs in San Antonio: A Path to Equity and Sustainability publication.
ULI Toronto
ULI Toronto conducted four workshops to identify best practices to reinvent under-performing suburban and urban areas in health-promoting and affordable ways by creating 20-minute walkable neighborhoods with community hubs. This work will help advance efforts to foster communities that promote health, improve competitiveness and quality of life, and move the Greater Golden Horseshoe region to reach carbon neutrality in innovative, inclusive and affordable ways. Phase II of the project will narrow in on the Uptown Brampton project to develop a 5-year integrated implementation action plan.
View the Getting to Transit Oriented Communities: Experiences in Canada publication.
Build Community Value
Reach out to learn how the ULI Curtis Infrastructure Initiative could help your community either through direct technical assistance or engaging with our global network.