2024 Winter Issue of Urban Land - 22

PHILANTHROPIC IMPACT
$15,000 grant to build on the panel's
efforts.
Todd Mansfield, principal,
Mansfield Company
to help local communities find solutions
for their infrastructure needs by
funding research, as well as technical
assistance provided by ULI's District
Councils.
Todd Mansfield, principal of the
real estate investment and advisory
firm Mansfield Company and a
former ULI global chair, has served
on the initiative's advisory board.
He explains that the initiative carries
out Curtis' vision. " His belief
was that infrastructure was a driving
force in shaping the built environment, "
Mansfield says. " He wanted
to make resources available in this
... overlooked area, to identify best
practices and find solutions. He
defined infrastructure quite broadly.
It's not just roads and sidewalks, but
also transit and public facilities. And
it intersects with climate impacts. So,
it's a real top yield. "
One of the initiative's big advantages
is that the micro-grants it
awards to District Councils for infrastructure
projects ultimately have a
multiplier effect, resulting in a larger
impact. One example can be found
in Rondo, a historic Black neighborhood
in St. Paul, Minnesota, that
suffered a decline in the late 1960s,
after construction of an interstate
highway cut a swath through it,
resulting in the loss of 600 homes
and 300 businesses.
In 2018, a ULI Advisory Services
Panel studied an innovative possible
solution for restoring Rondo's vitality-putting
a lid over the highway
with a land bridge that would reconnect
the neighborhood. The Curtis
Infrastructure Initiative provided a
22
URBAN LAND WINTER 202 4
Guided by ULI member expertise
and in partnership with a District
Council, ULI Minnesota, the project
went on to receive an additional
$6.2 million state grant in 2021. In
March 2023, the federal government
awarded an additional $2 million
grant to enable further study of the
concept, which could become a reality
in a few years.
Educating communities about
development
Through participation in a realistic
training exercise, UrbanPlan enables
high school and university students,
community members, and public officials
to better understand the forces
that shape the built environment
around them. Since starting during
the first decade of the 21st century
as an extracurricular activity at a few
high schools in the San Francisco
Bay Area, UrbanPlan has undergone
tremendous growth. The educational
program has spread across the
United States and Canada, and taken
hold in the United Kingdom, elsewhere
in Europe, and in several Asian
countries, as well. Just last year, the
program reached 5,117 students and
participants, shaping their perspectives
and encouraging collaboration.
" One of the great things about
UrbanPlan is that people get to
experience the different roles in the
development process, " explains Alissa
Akins, vice president for UrbanPlan
and ULI Learning. " It's really easy
for developers to say that the public
sector [has] too many [rules and]
regulations. And ... it's easy for the
public sector to say, 'Well, developers
just want to make money.' But the
reality is that those decisions are a
lot more nuanced. "
One of UrbanPlan's strengths is
that it helps participants to see that
development is more than just erecting
buildings, Akins says. " It's more
about community-building and helping
people to think about the impact
that a building has upon the people
around it. "
In 2023, the program continued
its efforts to get more local public
officials to participate in the training
exercise. " It's an audience that we
haven't always reached effectively in
the past, " Akins says. " UrbanPlan is a
way of reaching and engaging them,
and hopefully bringing them more
into the ULI ecosystem. "
That outreach is exemplified by an
UrbanPlan session that Akins helped
to lead for city council members in
a major U.S. city, during which they
devised a development plan for an
imaginary urban neighborhood with
an array of realistic needs.
Public officials get a condensed,
single-day version of UrbanPlan; students
participate in a lengthier exercise,
spread over part of a semester,
in which they build their own financial
model for the development project.
Whereas the program strives to
give public officials a more nuanced,
multidimensional understanding of
the development progress, " with the
students, it's more about collaboration,
teamwork, and public speaking, "
Akins says. " At the end of the
day, the main goal is to enable the
students to be more active in their
communities. "
Gifts to the Foundation and the
Annual Fund are powering these
amazing initiatives and programs and
are helping ULI reach its goal to raise
$100 million to improve our communities
through the Our Cities, Our
Future campaign. That effort aims
to further ULI's mission priorities of
accelerating decarbonization of the
built environment, developing the
next generation of diverse real estate
leaders, and creating attainable housing
strategies. Giving is also a way
that each ULI member can make an
impact across the organization that
ripples into the world and generates
positive change. UL
PATRICK J. KIGER is a Washington, D.C.-based
journalist.
2024 Winter Issue of Urban Land

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