Grants Totaling $500,000 Granted to 30 ULI District and National Councils Worldwide

For more information, contact:
Robert Krueger at 202-624-7051 or Email: [email protected]

LOS ANGELES (October 25, 2011) – Thirty grants totaling $500,000 have been awarded to Urban Land Institute (ULI) district and national councils through ULI’s 75th Anniversary Urban Innovation Fund program. The announcement was made today at ULI’s Fall Meeting and Urban Land Expo in Los Angeles.

For the program, the ULI Foundation’s Annual Fund contributed funds to be distributed as grants to local ULI projects that recognize or launch innovative public-private partnerships that will advance the responsible use of land in building healthy, thriving communities worldwide over the next 75 years. The $500,000 provided by the ULI Foundation is the largest amount ever contributed by the Foundation to support a single funding round. This special one-year program takes the place of ULI’s Community Action Grant program, which will resume in 2013.

The 30 grants, ranging in size from $5,000 to $25,000, were awarded to 23 winners in the United States, two in Canada, three in Europe and two in Asia. A second round of grants will be awarded at the 2012 ULI Fall Meeting in Denver, the conclusion of the institute’s year-long anniversary celebration.

“The ULI Foundation’s Urban Innovation Fund grants are the perfect way to mark the 75th Anniversary of the institute,” said program review committee chair John H. Mays, managing partner at Gould & Ratner. “These awards recognize and help fund innovative approaches to local land use challenges and will assist local ULI Councils, in partnership with private industry, community based not-for-profit organizations and local government, to help build thriving communities worldwide.”

The recipients of the 2011 ULI Urban Innovation Fund grants are:

• ULI Arizona: CommunityPlan – A Statewide Public Officials Educational Curriculum – ULI Arizona has brought together seven entities to create a public-private collaborative: CommunityPlan, a program that will build decision-making capacity at the local level by delivering a public officials educational workshop curriculum, an annual conference, and a pool of faculty experts responsive to the unique issues and characteristics of Arizona communities.
• ULI Atlanta: Atlanta Streetcar Development Strategy – ULI Atlanta along the City of Atlanta and other partners aims to leverage the federal and municipal investment in the Atlanta Streetcar project by organizing a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to focus on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the draft Atlanta Streetcar Development Strategy .port transit oriented development.
• ULI Austin, North Texas, Houston, and San Antonio: Texas Local Product Councils: Public/Private Partnerships – ULI Austin will partner with ULI North Texas, ULU Houston, and ULI San Antonio to replicate a ULI Austin Product Council of members from the public and private sectors and organize a statewide meeting of these local councils as means to accelerating the formation of more beneficial public private partnerships in Texas.
• ULI Boston: Hub and Spoke: Core Capacity Transit and Regional Economic Growth – ULI Boston, in collaboration with its two partners, A Better City and Our Transportation Future, will issue a report to heighten awareness of Massachusetts public officials about the limited capacity of the existing regional transportation system to handle expected growth in the city core and the need to fund solutions to relieve congestion.
• ULI British Columbia: Technical Assistance Panel – Lower Mainland Municipality – ULI British Columbia will organize a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) for a suburban municipality, with a primary focus on transit-oriented development.
• ULI Budapest: Budapest Heritage Restoration – With the assistance of an Advisory Service Panel, ULI Budapest will partner with the City of Budapest to develop a public-private partnership capable of implementing a viable strategy for revitalizing the historic but deteriorated town center.
• ULI Chicago: Aerotropolis: Game Changing Infrastructure for the New Economy – ULI Chicago will convene stakeholders from the public, private, and civic sectors to explore the feasibility of developing land uses around the Western O’Hare Bypass Project as an aerotropolis.
• ULI Colorado: Real Estate Diversity Initiative – ULI Colorado and its partners in the Mayor’s office, local universities and the Hispanic, Black and Asian chambers of commerce will build on the great success of their 9 month professional development program, Real Estate Diversity Initiative (REDI), launched in 2009 to increase the number of women and minorities into the professional real estate development community.
• ULI Florida District Councils: 2012 ULI Florida “The State We’re In” Conference – The five Florida District Councils have joined together to plan and execute a statewide conference in June of 2012, focusing on building better public-private relationships at the regional level.
• ULI France: Grande Paris Community Engagement – ULI France is working with the French government to address a workforce housing crisis occurring in the metropolitan region of Paris. Over the next 15 years, 50,000 homes will be built in the city center. This project will engage residents of Paris’ deprived neighborhoods in the design and governance of a substantial urban redevelopment program.
• ULI Hampton Roads: May 2012 Reality Check – ULI Hampton Roads is partnering with Old Dominion University, Hampton Roads Planning District Commission and Hampton Roads partnership to conduct a Reality Check in May 2012. The result of the Reality Check will be a set of guiding land use principles and a vision for how the community can grow by more than 350,000 over the next 25 years.
• ULI Houston: High Impact Development Toolkit – Building Consensus and Transforming Communities – ULI Houston will develop a “High Impact Redevelopment Toolkit” by engaging residents in southeast Houston, ULI members, nonprofit leaders, universities real estate professionals and government officials in a series of charettes, discussions, and analysis. This work builds on previous ULI grants and the City’s participation in the Rose Center Fellowship for Public Leadership in Land Use.
• ULI Indiana: Regional Council of Mayors – ULI Indiana, in conjunction with Mayors and Town Council Presidents of 30+ communities in Central Indiana, will serve as a neutral convening body for a new Regional Council of Mayors (RCM) for Central Indiana, based on the successful six year old ULI Minnesota Regional Council of Mayors.
• ULI Louisiana: Parking Benefits Districts: A Winning Policy for Residents and Businesses in New Orleans – ULI Louisiana in collaboration with the Mayor of New Orleans’ Office, and 6 partners from the public, business and academic sectors, will fund a community symposium, a stakeholder workshop, and a final report describing action steps and recommendations for implementing a Parking Benefits District.
• ULI Memphis: Mid-South Forum to Advance Regional Partnerships – ULI Memphis will hold a Forum to advance regional partnerships in the Mid-South by inviting national speakers to discuss successful examples of regional approaches to mobility, green infrastructure, economic competitiveness. ULI Memphis will also write a report about indicators that can be used to measure success at the regional level.
• ULI Minnesota: Navigating the New Normal – Public Official Education Program – ULI Minnesota will partner with the Family Housing Fund, the Minnesota Housing Finance Authority, the Metropolitan Council and ULI members to offer a new innovative program, “Navigating the New Normal,” a two hour workshop for elected and appointed city officials providing a practical approach to the new challenges of (re) development due to shifts in the market and changing demographics
• ULI Nashville: ULI Nashville Music City Report Card: A Collaborative Tool to Promote and Achieve Smart Growth – ULI Nashville with the American Society of Civil Engineers and several Nashville based universities will create a Music City Infrastructure Report Card that will evaluate the current state of Nashville’s infrastructure systems and be published on the web and in a brochure format for the purpose of raising awareness about the importance of maintaining and expanding the region’s infrastructure systems for regional growth and development.
• ULI North Asia: ULI SAND Study – Phase 2 – ULI North Asia will conduct a multi-stakeholders workshop to investigate what kinds of changes are necessary in regulatory and development practices in Hong Kong to ensure more sustainable and integrated large-scale development, based on its recent report on 10 principles for sustainable development.
• ULI Oklahoma: Revisioning Retail Corridors: Towards a Revitalization Strategy for I-240 – ULI Oklahoma along with its lead partner, the City of Oklahoma City will (1) conduct a series of workshops with property owners, businesses and other stakeholders in the I-240 corridor to revision the area and reconsider appropriate land uses and (2) convene a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to examine alternatives to the current perception that the I- 240 corridor is best suited for retail strip development.
• ULI Orange County/IE: Guide Dogs of the Desert Technical Assistance Panel – ULI Orange County/IE Young Leaders Group have been conducting Pro Bono YLG Technical Assistance Programs (TAPs) since 2006. This year, they are conducting a TAP to provide strategic land use advice to the nonprofit organization, Guide Dogs of the Desert (GDD).
• ULI Richmond: The Real Richmond – ULI Richmond and partners will organize a three-part meeting series about the need for regional strategies to economic development and land use in preparation for a 2012-2013 Reality Check. The result of this process will be engaged, committed partners in the public and private sectors who are informed, readied, and inspired for collaboration around public policy development and action.
• ULI Sacramento: and the Greater Broadway Partnership – ULI Sacramento and its partner, the Greater Broadway Partnership, will organize a community forum and public work shop to collect public input on a vision plan for the Broadway Corridor, intended to be a roadmap and investment strategy to economic revitalization.
• ULI San Diego/Tijuana: Powering Innovation Economies – ULI San Diego/Tijuana organized a two day conference in September 2011, gathering private sector and public sector leaders to learn about the best ideas and techniques for sparking innovation, growing local talent and attracting business to the city.
• ULI San Francisco: ULI development partnerships teambuilding and certification program – ULI San Francisco will organize, at the request of the City of San Francisco, monthly workshops about the nuts and bolts of public/private partnerships for a Mayor appointed multi-agency “Development Partnerships Team”. Panels of ULI member private developers using case studies to discuss the basis of the development process, real estate finance and pro forma analysis, gap financing methods and negotiations, and methods to streamline the entitlement process.
• ULI Singapore: High Density Urban Livability – ULI Singapore and its partner Centre for Livable Cities will conduct a study to identify the ten principles for creating a successful “high density and high livability environment” as well as positive aspects of high density urban living that can be replicated in other communities.
• ULI South Carolina: ULI Sustainable Leadership Institute Summit – ULI South Carolina and its public and nonprofit partners will convene the alumni of its Sustainable Leadership Institute for a summit to discuss pressing issues facing the state including emerging economies, innovation and technology, community building, and more.
• ULI Toronto: John Street Revitalization / Streetscape Plan – Building on recommendations by a previous Technical Assistance Program, ULI Toronto will assist its two public sector partners with the development of the design, construction drawings and phasing for a streetscape plan that will revitalize John Street from a secondary commercial street into vibrant environment for existing and future neighborhood retail, restaurants and cafes.
• ULI Triangle: Sustainable Triangle Visioning Workshop – ULI Triangle, in conjunction with their local partners, is proposing to hold a Strategic Visioning Workshop/Charette to convene leaders from the private sector, local and regional governments, educational institutions, and prominent non-profits to identify opportunities for collaboration and partnership to pursue the next steps of Reality Check from 2009.
• ULI United Kingdom: Connecting Communities with Olympic Development – Developed around the UrbanPlan framework used in the U.S., ULI UK Young Leaders and members will work through a partner organization to provide opportunities for disadvantaged youth in the five ‘host boroughs’ for the 2012 Olympics to learn about the expected legacy of the Olympic Park and to provide input to the forthcoming Advisory Service Panel about the reuse of the Olympic Park.
• ULI Washington: Facing the Future: Embracing the Evolving Federal Workplace Facility Mandates – ULI Washington will partner with the US General Services Administration (GSA) in order to convene a workshop for federal managers and private sector experts about the future of office space design and construction, given trends in office utilization which are occurring because of budget pressures, changing demographics, and advances in technology.

The winners were selected by a review committee of renowned land use development and planning experts. In addition to review chairman Mays, other members were Robert E. Engstrom, president, Robert Engstrom Companies, Minneapolis; Neisen O. Kasdin, office managing shareholder, Akerman, Miami; M. Leanne Lachman, president, Lachman Associates, New York; and Caroline Moore, chief executive officer, Ekistics LLC, Baltimore.

In selecting the winners, the jury sought projects that reflected innovative, new ideas; measurable outcomes; a prominent role for ULI in the project; models that could be applied to other places; and projects that focused on ULI’s three core areas: sustainability, infrastructure and workforce/affordable housing.

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 sustaining and creating thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has nearly 30,000 members representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.