Food and Real Estate
ULI’s Food and Real Estate Project explores the mutually beneficial relationship between food-based amenities—such as working farms, community gardens, food halls, restaurants, and grocery stores—and real estate. It highlights how the growing interest in and awareness of fresh, local food is spurring innovation in development projects.
ULI is grateful to the Colorado Health Foundation and the Leichtag Foundation for their support of this project and the Building Healthy Places Initiative.
Major Reports
Agrihoods: Cultivating Best Practices
2018
Inspired by a growing body of evidence that developments centered on working farms can have a positive effect on human health, environmental sustainability, and real estate performance, Agrihoods: Cultivating Best Practices identifies strategies to aid developers and their partners in planning, creating, and operating single-family, multifamily, or mixed-use communities built with a working farm as a focus.
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Cultivating Development: Trends and Opportunities at the Intersection of Food and Real Estate
2016
This publication explores how developers are integrating food-based amenities—such as farms, gardens, food halls, restaurants, and grocery stores—within projects, thereby generating real estate value and benefits for people and the planet.
Videos
The videos below showcase real estate projects in California and Colorado that put food at the center of development. This trend, which produces health and sustainability benefits for local communities and supports project success for investors and developers, is increasing across the country. Watch the videos and learn more.
Projects Briefs
ULI briefs are short versions of ULI case studies. All briefs can be found and viewed on the ULI Case Studies site.
News
Colorado Builder | “Farm to Front Door: Agrihoods Build Bridge Between Communities and Local Food.'” January 2022
Forbes | “Meet The Farm-Based Neighborhoods Changing The Face Of Master-Planned Communities.'” September 2019
UrbanLand | “What Does the Farmer Say about Agrihoods?.'” October 7, 2019
National Real Estate Investor | “Eight Takeaways from Day Two of ULI’s Fall Meeting – ‘Want a farm in your development? Plan it out.'” October 2018
The National | “Are ‘Agrihoods’ the Cure for the Common Suburb?,” December 2017
Business Insider | “Millennials are Ditching the Golf Communities of their Parents for a New Kind of Neighborhood,” October 30, 2017
The Orange County Register | “Goodbye Golf Course, Hello Olive Grove! New Palm Springs Enclave to Become an ‘Agri-hood’,” October 22, 2017
Idaho Business Review | “Boise Spectrum Will Join The National Push for Public Markets,” August 31, 2017
Yahoo! Finance | “This Golf Course is Being Converted into a Residential Olive Grove,” August 22, 2017
Realtor.com | “Seeds of a New Community: Farm Living Takes Root in the Suburbs,” August 9, 2017
Civil Eats | “Growing Agrihoods: The Next Frontier in Urban Revitalization,” January 30, 2017
Curbed | “10 Exciting Developments Fusing Food and Real Estate,” November 29, 2016
UrbanLand | “Connecting Food and the Built Environment in New Orleans,” March 16, 2016
UrbanLand | “Food Adds Flavor (and Value) to Real Estate,” June 28, 2016
UrbanLand | “Recognizing the Power of Food in Enhancing Development,” October 19, 2015
Supporters
ULI is grateful to the Colorado Health Foundation and the Leichtag Foundation for their support of this project and the Building Healthy Places Initiative. ULI is also grateful to the Shaw Family for its support of the ULI New Orleans Food Forum and to the Shops at Canal Place and O’Connor Capital Partners for their sponsorship of that forum.
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