Urban Land - June 2009 - Table of Contents
Changing Formats
Sprawl development patterns in the United States are being reshaped by shifting demographics and public efforts to induce change; aging and underperforming prototypical suburban properties such as shopping centers, office parks, big-box retail, and garden apartment complexes are being transformed into more urban and sustainable mixed-use places.
Retrofitting Suburbia
By Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson
The dearth of good, cheap, undeveloped sites in suburban markets, the escalating number of vacant greyfield properties, and the expansion of mass transit systems into suburban areas are all factoring into a changed American suburban market.
Reworking the Office
By A. Chad Cowart and Gregg Logan
The conventional American suburban office park is rapidly becoming an outdated model of development as both employers and employees shift their expectations of the workplace from yesterday's model of an office in a park to an office in a place.
Reusing Big Boxes
By Jeffrey Spivak
Communities across America are building a track record of putting empty big-box stores back to use.
Coming of Age
By Dhaval Barbhaya and Jeff Davis
India's massive infrastructure improvements and aggressive entrepreneurial sector are expected to propel the nation's economy into the world's top three by 2015, behind only the United States and China.
Courting Life Science Campuses
By Brian Lawlor and Joseph Zink
High salaries, the potential for fast growth, and the prospect of stable new tax revenue are behind the incentive-laden competition among U.S. state and local officials to land new science developments.
Developments
Recession Watch:
- Brave New World: Cautious Optimism at the 2009 ULI Europe Trends Conference
- London Loses Spot as Priciest Office Space in World
- Commentary: Back to the Future
- Businesses, Builders, Commercial Tenants Able to Lower Federal Taxes with Energy Efficiency
- Development Community Eligible to Receive Federal Funds Through HUD
Office Green Retrofits Even in Today's Market?
New Bridge Opens Up Glasgow's Waterfront
Vienna Tops Quality-of-Life Rankings; Singapore Takes Leadership in Infrastructure
Land Writes
Global Demographics Highlights: 2009
By M. Leanne Lachman and Deborah l. Brett
Investing where demographic demand is strong and deep is far more rewarding over time than investing in markets with little or no growth.
Chinas Land Reforms
By Helena Fu Orlik
Land reform in China is turning a constraint for developers into an opportunity for better urban planning.
Downtown Freeway Removals
By Jeffrey Spivak
Many U.S. highway removal initiatives share downtown-oriented goals to open up redevelopment opportunities and reconnect the downtown to the waterfront.
Dialogues
Dialogue: Finance
A Tsunami of Debt Coming Due
By Anthony Downs
Commercial properties in the United States have not yet suffered from the financial crisis nearly as much as housing. However, commercial property owners will soon face a tsunami of debt coming due and the result will be a cascade of both defaults and foreclosures on commercial properties.
Dialogue: Leadership
Keeping an Eye on the Future
By Todd Mansfield
The combination of economic pressures, a new activist U.S. federal land use policy framework, and a world in need of community building makes ULI's work vitally important. The Institute is in an excellent position to take a leadership position in determining the role land use can play in economic and environmental sustainability.
ULX
Refitted for Work
By Ron Nyren
Ten adaptive use and renovation projects turn even unlikely candidates into modern office space.
Proactive
Capital markets
Finding Capital and Light in a Very Long Tunnel
By Ryan Krauch
To access the capital that is available, borrowers will need to understand that the mantra in the real estate capital markets will no longer be how much do you need, but how much can you get?
At Issue
Planning Densification from the Start
By Mark Rodman Smith
Density increasingly is prescribed by those seeking to improve U.S. cities. At the same time, it is becoming harder to accomplish. A move to a process that systemically preplans density in key locations can help projects overcome obstacles.
In Practice
Auctioning Commercial Property
By Richard B. Gold
An auction can serve as a highly efficient market-to-market vehicle, and may actually generate a higher selling price than bringing a property to market.
Design
Community and the Form-Based Code
By Jeff Herlitz
Form-based coding relies on form, not use, to define the built environment. This simple distinction is said to lend it much greater ability than typical Euclidean zoning to create a sense of community.
Trustee Profile
Back Page
The 2009 Tax Debate: What's in Store for Commercial Real Estate?
By Fred Witt, Jeff Kummer, and Elizabeth Magin
Real estate is facing a number of tax changes under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009.
Departments
UL MailBox
Publisher Note
This Issue
Multifamily Trends
Energy-Efficient Upgrades: Paying for themselves