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Place Making / Public Realm


The quest for community and identity fosters an increasing concern for the quality of the public realm and for urban design that creates a sense of place. Through the exploration of the issues surrounding quality places, ULI examines the intrinsic nature of what makes a great place and the revitalization of existing centers. The roles of the public and private sectors are explored through the examination of community design that embraces economic viability, sustainability, and social equity. Through good community design, a project or area stands the test of time and retains its value through generations, thus making place making and the quality of the public realm of significant and continuous concern.
News


Place Making Around the World
Asking the right questions of a community will be one of the most difficult aspects of shifting to a place-making perspective in development projects around the world.Urban Land Institute Selects Suburbs for Housing Development Program
“The mayors supported an opportunity to go beyond the carrot-and-stick approach,” said Caren Dewar, executive director of ULI. “We’re trying to create intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to make housing more affordable.”Mixed-Use Demand Still a Bright Spot
As the city has expanded, those older malls – once on the urban fringes – are now prime urban locations ripe for redevelopment, said Michael Beyard, a senior fellow with the Urban Land Institute, which studies development trends. Developers are recasting those sites as new mixed-use projects to make more money, he said.More Icons for Dubai
Waterfront City, to be located on the western shores of the port city Jebel Ali in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will transform 1.4 billion square feet (130 million sq m) of desert and sea into an international community for an estimated population of 1.5 million—twice the number of people on Hong Kong Island. The project, being developed on the last 9.3 miles (15 km) of natural coastline in Dubai, will create more than 43 miles (70 km) of coastline in all, including development of 23 percent of the Arabian Canal.Workforce Housing and Climate Change
The location of workforce housing—and all types of housing—is critical to planning how land is used in light of climate change and global warming. It is key to designing the compact communities needed to reduce the greenhouse gases emitted every day in the United States from the built environment and from the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) due to low-density development.
Events
Place Making: The Business of Creating Thriving Mixed-Use Development
Location: Denver, CO
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The essence of place making is the creation of economically vibrant, aesthetically attractive, lively and engaging, pedestrian-friendly places. Increasingly, another factor is coming into play—sustainability—leading to an increased focus on infill, mixed-use, walkable, and transit-served development projects as critical components for building healthy and enduring communities. However, delivering these dividends continues to be full of challenges for both developers and public officials. This year’s conference will focus on approaches that are being used to support mixed-use place making projects. The conference will address the challenges inherent in both infill and greenfield place making including neighborhood opposition, complicated financing structures, public/private partnerships, changing markets, and unfriendly regulatory environments.

Award Winning Projects
Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower
Mitsui Tower is a 39-storey office tower atop a podium that includes a luxury hotel, restaurants, and a museum that displays the cultural collection of the Mitsui family. The project was allowed to exceed its as-of-right FAR by transferring the unused FAR of the adjacent landmark Mitsui Honkan building.Overture Center for the Arts
Occupying an entire city block, this performing and visual arts center located one block from the state capitol building, and funded by private money, anchors a new arts district in the city and has accelerated the revitalization of Madison’s central downtown area.Petit Palau
The Petit Palau respectfully expands the Palau de la Musica Catalana, A UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a subterranean performance space that allows the original Art Nouveau masterpiece to be exposed on all sides as was originally intended.Roppongi Hills
The largest private sector redevelopment ever undertaken in Japan, Roppongi Hills has established benchmarks for green space, diversity of land uses, and seismic infrastructure. Even before its completion in 2003, the 12-hectare project catalyzed new investment in the Roppongi neighborhood with 79 hectares of floor area in 13 buildings.Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade
The Sabine to Bagby Promenade transforms 23 acres of Houston’s downtown Buffalo Bayou with 3,000 linear feet of urban park, 1.5 miles of hiking/biking trails, and improved floodwater conveyance. The linear park traverses some of the city’s most challenging urban conditions, including overhead freeways and utilities, steep slopes, and floodplains.
At the Local Level

Learn about sponsored educational forums and events such as trends conferences, Smart Growth programs, and project tours, through community outreach programs, and by providing industry expertise to community leaders.



Place Making Around the World
Asking the right questions of a community will be one of the most difficult aspects of shifting to a place-making perspective in development projects around the world.Urban Land Institute Selects Suburbs for Housing Development Program
“The mayors supported an opportunity to go beyond the carrot-and-stick approach,” said Caren Dewar, executive director of ULI. “We’re trying to create intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to make housing more affordable.”Mixed-Use Demand Still a Bright Spot
As the city has expanded, those older malls – once on the urban fringes – are now prime urban locations ripe for redevelopment, said Michael Beyard, a senior fellow with the Urban Land Institute, which studies development trends. Developers are recasting those sites as new mixed-use projects to make more money, he said.More Icons for Dubai
Waterfront City, to be located on the western shores of the port city Jebel Ali in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will transform 1.4 billion square feet (130 million sq m) of desert and sea into an international community for an estimated population of 1.5 million—twice the number of people on Hong Kong Island. The project, being developed on the last 9.3 miles (15 km) of natural coastline in Dubai, will create more than 43 miles (70 km) of coastline in all, including development of 23 percent of the Arabian Canal.Workforce Housing and Climate Change
The location of workforce housing—and all types of housing—is critical to planning how land is used in light of climate change and global warming. It is key to designing the compact communities needed to reduce the greenhouse gases emitted every day in the United States from the built environment and from the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) due to low-density development.
Experts
Dean Schwanke, Senior Vice President, Information Group
E-mail: dschwanke@uli.org
Research and Publications
Urban Design and the Bottom LineUrban Design and the Bottom Line: Optimizing the Return on Perception
How can you calculate the "design dividend" the added value generated from good design before an investment is made? This book answers that question using verifiable figures and drawing on the experiences and lessons learned from developers, public officials, and designers.
Getting Real About UrbanismGetting Real About Urbanism: Contextual Design for Cities
How do you create a flourishing, livable place appealing to residents and visitors of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds? Offering a ground-breaking alternative to uniform, "cookie-cutter" urban designs, Getting Real About Urbanism describes techniques for creating Real Urbanism designing places with personality that reflect what is distinctive and original in a neighborhood, district, city, or region.

Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages
One of the hottest trends in real estate is the development of town centers and urban villages that include a mix of uses in a pedestrian friendly setting. This new book will help you navigate the unique development issues and options and show you how to make all of the elements work together.
Place Making and Town Center Development -- ULI Info Packet
This spiral bound book of photocopied articles and reports includes magazine articles, unpublished reports, sections from ULI books and reports, project descriptions, and title/tables of contents from relevant books.
Port Credit Village
On the shores of Lake Ontario just south of Toronto, a factory site has been transformed into a high-density mixed-use community of townhouses, mid-rise condominium buildings, office space, stores, restaurants, and parks.Greenwich Millennium Village
The result of a public/private partnership to reclaim a brownfield along the Thames River in East London and designed to be a sustainable community, Greenwich Millennium Village—when completed—will contain 2,956 residential units (30 percent of which will be affordable) with office and retail space.Lowry
A 1,866-acre (755-hectare), mixed-use master-planned community, this former air force base is still a major economic generator for the region, providing 86 acres (35 hectares) of commercial space, 130,000 square feet (12,077 square meters) of retail stores, an educational campus, and 4,500 new homes.Namba Parks
Namba Parks is an urban lifestyle center fitted onto a 3.37-hectare (8.33-acre) underutilized parcel in the heart of Osaka’s central business district (CBD). The site is part of a narrow strip of land owned by Nankai Electric, which has been progressively developing it over the course of half a century, starting from the densest end. Surrounded by raised railroad tracks to the east and an urban boulevard and elevated viaduct to the west, Namba Parks offers green space atop an eight-level assemblage of 108 shops and restaurants arranged to form an indoor-outdoor urban retail and entertainment complex visually anchored by a 30-floor office tower.Nordheim Court
Located near the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, Nordheim Court provides housing for 460 students in a complex of eight, three- to five-story buildings oriented around a pond and open spaces. The 146-unit project comprises a mix of studio, one-, two-, and four-bedroom units in both townhouse and flat configurations on 2.8 acres (1.13 hectares) of land. Lorig Associates, Nordheim Court’s for-profit developer, built it in a partnership with the state-funded University of Washington and nonprofit entity Twenty-Fifth Avenue Properties, LLC.