2023 Winter Issue - 19

thisissue
Serendipitous Encounters
" Never Underestimate the power of showing up, "
writes Sheba Ross in her piece " Being There " (page
25). Therein she shares game-changing career tips for
young real estate leaders. Ross-who joined ULI Atlanta's
Young Leaders Group, or YLG, a decade ago-is a
principal and global director of the Cities and Communities
practice for design firm HKS. She also serves on
ULI Atlanta's Advisory Board and Technical Assistance
Panel Committee.
Ross's statement is a powerful one that applies
intuitively to life in a general way, and directly to real
estate in a quite tangible way. Urban Land met Ross
and heard her story during the Fall Meeting in Dallas,
over a small café table in the press room. Real estate is
indeed a relationship business.
Nowhere will real estate relationships be more
important than in gaining access to capital during 2023.
According to ULI/PwC's Emerging Trends in Real Estate®
2023 report, " many interviewees felt that capital is still
available and suggested that those with strong track
records and relationships with lenders should have no
trouble attracting financing at reasonable terms in order
to move good projects forward. " Our " Emerging Trends
around the Globe " package (page 68) distills key trends
from the reports for Canada, Asia Pacific, Europe, and
the United States.
Our Back Page column looks further into the future.
" The Land of Broken Deals, " by investment banker
John B. Levy (page 108), highlights four key lending
trends for real estate in 2023, as the market shifts.
" The change from a positive-leverage environment to
a negative-leverage one can dramatically reduce loan
sizes, " writes Levy.
Continuing our gaze ahead, Marta Schantz, coexecutive
director of ULI's Randall Lewis Center for
Sustainability in Real Estate, and Emily Zhang, a senior
associate with the ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative,
focus upon the top five priority areas that will affect real
estate decision-making next year (page 19), based on
the newly released ULI Global Sustainability Outlook
2023 report. Then our " Outlook into ESG Investing "
(page 38), by contributor Ron Nyren, presents a roundtable
of industry experts discussing how investors can
truly know that they are investing in sustainability.
That issue will grow Increasingly more critical as
the industry scrambles to meet new ESG standards.
" The investor space is pretty active in asking us what
we're doing with biodiversity. The conversation has
turned from 'What are you doing in the carbon space?'
to 'What are you doing in the biodiversity space?' "
says Darryl Stuckey of Lendlease in " Nature-Positive
Design " (page 55). That feature, written by Berlin-based
journalist Bennett Voyles, is based on yet another new
sustainability report from ULI, which offers a comprehensive
view of how some sustainability-focused developers
and asset managers are developing properties in
ways that enhance biodiversity.
Our Winter cover image picks up on the theme of
" exacting standards " with a photograph of City Ridge,
the $715 million redevelopment of Fannie Mae's HQ in
Northwest D.C., which also appears in a feature (page
62) by former Washington Post real estate editor Maryann
Haggerty. Although small, that project's developer,
Roadside Development-led by ULI member Richard
Lake-is known for its impactful, even catalytic projects
(think City Market at O and Stonebridge at Potomac
Town Center).
In this issue, we are also proud to present the six
winners of ULI's 2022 Global Awards for Excellence,
among the land use industry's most prestigious
awards. This feature showcases projects from China,
France, Poland, Singapore, and the United States.
And because achieving excellence also requires
showing up, we include coverage of ULI Asia Pacific's
third REImagine conference (page 22), the first official
ULI event in the Thai capital, as well as expanded coverage
of the Fall Meeting (page 3o), where the movers
and shakers of real estate gathered to learn, make
new friends, and deepen existing relationships. Hope
to see you in Toronto for ULI's Spring Meeting, May
16-18, 2023. UL
SIBLEY FLEMING is editor in chief of Urban Land.
WINTER 2023
URBAN LAND
17
Urban Land's
introduction to City
Ridge in June 2022: a
rooftop reception for
real estate stakeholders
involved in the city,
including members of
the District of Columbia
Building Industry
Association, the
Developer Roundtable,
Federal City Council,
and the Washington DC
Economic Partnership.
SIBLEY FLEMING
2023 Winter Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2023 Winter Issue
