2023 Fall Issue of Urban Land - 18

thisissue
The Shape of Things to Come
The Theme of the Fall issue of Urban Land
is transformation. It's an evocative word that
speaks to reimagining urban life for a healthier,
more equitable, and sustainable future.
The building on the cover, the CMNTY Culture
Campus in LA, was designed by HKS to
invite and allow the surrounding community
to see inside. The project nearly splits into two
buildings, with a wide space in the middle,
where several floors of office space with green
terraces overlook a roof deck space on the fifth
floor of the complex (Entertainment, p. 71).
Brooklyn-based journalist Holly Dutton writes
(Soundstage Design, p. 66) that a new wave of
soundstage facilities, which accounts for tens
of millions of square feet of real estate, is being
driven by soaring demand for content, drawing
high-profile investors such as Blackstone
and Bain Real Estate Capital, which are making
big bets on the product type. And with more
variability in how movies are made, there are
different structural proportions and sizes, based
on different kinds of moviemaking. At the same
time, developers are being much more thoughtful
about spaces and how they are used.
LA-based journalist Kelsi Borland echos
our theme in examining how an NFL stadium
saved a city back at the brink of bankruptcy
(Inglewood's Transformation, p. 56). " The redevelopment
of Hollywood Park and the addition
of SoFi stadium have motivated an impressive
series of projects, " Borland writes. " Inglewood
will welcome the Los Angeles Clippers, a basketball
team, to the newly constructed 18,000seat,
$2 billion Intuit Dome next year. "
This issue also spotlights several ULI key leaders
who are leading on many important fronts.
Former ULI Global Chairman and BXP Chairman
and CEO Owen Thomas explains that by
making investments in needed improvements
now, the commercial real estate industry could
alter the course of climate change (Proactive
Sustainability, p. 30). " I believe in the power
of our industry to rise to the occasion, invest
in needed improvements, and change the
18
URBAN LAND FALL 2023
A draft illustrative
concept for the
proposed Television
City Specific Plan in
Los Angeles. RIOS is
the master and design
architect for the $1
billion renovation plan
for Television City,
an iconic television
studio first built in the
early 1950s.
course of climate change, and I believe ULI is
an important convener for this work, " Thomas
writes. " In 2021, I made a personal contribution
to launch ULI's Net Zero Imperative, which
aims to accelerate the decarbonization of the
built environment in cities and to democratize
sustainability best practices for all organizations
that own and use buildings. "
Thomas is joined by key leaders such as Savills'
Chairman and CEO Mitch Rudin (Building a
Diverse Pipeline, p. 26) and ULI Global Board
Member and Avanath Capital founder and CEO
Daryl Carter (Seizing Opportunity, p. 76), who
share valuable insights into how they are building
diverse pipelines within their companies and
within the industry.
And, of course, a conversation about transformation
would be incomplete without bringing
technology to the table. To that end, Lian Plass,
a senior manager for ULI's Urban Resilience
program, writes (Enter Generative AI, p. 29)
about how firms active in real estate capital
markets are already employing generative AI to
enhance operations at all levels of the transaction
process-a foregone conclusion as generative
models, such as GPT, LlaMA, and BERT, are
constantly improving and being incorporated
into user-friendly, no-code platforms. What's
more, some of the real estate industry's major
players are already launching their own AIpowered
tools for lead generation.
Keeping up with these and other trends will
be no doubt be a part of building a more sustainable,
healthier, and equitable world. UL
SIBLEY FLEMING is editor in chief of Urban Land.
© 20 21 KIL OGR APH C OUR TES Y OF RIO S
2023 Fall Issue of Urban Land

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2023 Fall Issue of Urban Land
