by Emily Langner
On May 16-18, the Urban Land Institute held its 2023 Spring Meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Center in Toronto. According to ULI Global CEO, Ron Pressman, over 4,000 people attended the event, which included 30 sessions, over 100 speakers, and experiential tours all over the city of Toronto.
Ron Pressman
In his opening presentation, Pressman said, “We are in the midst of the ‘century of the city’…a period of historic migration and urban growth,” adding that “within a few decades, it’s predicted that maybe as much as 80% of the world’s population will reside in some 10,000 cities around the world.” Additionally, post-pandemic, cities have had to reinvent themselves, affecting businesses and the people that inhabit them. Major topics at the conference included sustainability, decarbonization, and housing equity and affordability.
Tracy Hadden Loh
During a session entitled Universal Buildings: Considering a Flexible-Use Strategy from the Start, Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow with the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at Brookings Metro, said the economy is evolving faster than ever before, while the built environment changes very slowly, so currently the surplus of office space coupled with the need for housing is driving the interest in office to residential conversions. She says an alternative to going down that path is putting more housing near jobs, which could then increase demand for the existing office space. Her policy recommendations for the public sector to consider include making building new housing on vacant and underutilized lots in downtowns and surrounding neighborhoods easier, and leveraging downtowns’ locational advantages for a range of other strategies to revitalize them.
Shawn Barney
In the session, P3s in 2023: How to Navigate Equitable Development in the Modern Era, Shawn Barney, managing director of CLB Porter, LLC, said equity when approaching a project not only means incorporating it at the owner, designer, and contractor level, but also at the programmatic level, making sure everybody in the community feels included in the project. This includes focusing on mixed-income housing, green space, and transportation equity, as well as sustainability and including the cultural history of the area. He emphasized that it’s important to lean in and be intentional about prioritizing racial equity in a development project.
Other sessions included Reimagining the Mall: The Final Urban Frontier; Repositioning Buildings with Sustainability as the Value-Add; The Welcoming City: Encouraging Diversity and Inclusion through Creative Placemaking; and Retrofitting Historic Buildings to Achieve Social, Economic, and Environmental Sustainability.
