Northeast Archives

Empire AI Impact Study

December 17, 2025 / Comments Off

HR&A prepared the first comprehensive impact study for Empire AI, demonstrating how New York’s state-of-the-art AI compute center is accelerating research and positioning the state as a national leader in responsible AI. Our economic analysis for Friends of Empire AI showed that the Alpha system has already supported more than 130 research projects, helping teams compress months of work into days through shared, world-class supercomputing.

The Empire AI consortium needed an objective analysis to understand the initiative’s economic and research impacts across New York State. HR&A developed a framework combining quantitative assessment of statewide economic impacts with case studies showcasing research applications across advanced manufacturing, cleantech, life sciences, and digital technologies. Our analysis documented how access to shared, world-class supercomputing is strengthening the state’s innovation ecosystem and delivering measurable benefits across diverse research disciplines.

Our findings revealed that as the consortium scales with its forthcoming Beta and Gamma systems, New York is poised to generate billions in long-term economic value, attract top talent, and drive job-creating investment in Buffalo and across the state. These insights provide policymakers and stakeholders with evidence-based understanding of the initiative’s impacts and the role of public AI infrastructure in advancing responsible AI development.

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Empire AI Impact Analysis

Press

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — POLITICO

Manhattan Chinatown Small Business Recovery and Cultural Preservation Strategy

November 17, 2025 / Comments Off

Since 2022, HR&A has worked with leaders in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood to support recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, address systemic challenges facing the small business community, and foster a new generation of AAPI entrepreneurs seeking to preserve the cultural identity of Chinatown.

Working closely with the nonprofit Welcome to Chinatown, HR&A has provided ongoing economic research, strategic planning, and implementation support services, from documenting COVID-19’s devastating economic impacts to creating operational frameworks for business support initiatives. This work has equipped Welcome to Chinatown with evidence-based strategies and actionable roadmaps, transforming local leaders’ ability to advocate for neighborhood investment and cultural preservation. In parallel, HR&A led a seven-month community planning process funded by a New York State grant that resulted in more than $60 million of public investment in the core of Chinatown to address pedestrian safety and public realm issues.

Manhattan’s Chinatown has endured repeated economic disruption over the past 25 years, including following 9/11, SARS, the Great Recession, and Superstorm Sandy, all exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered both severe business losses and rising anti-Asian violence. These acute challenges compounded long-term pressures from gentrification, changing demographics, and succession difficulties for legacy businesses. HR&A initially quantified these impacts through our 2022 Chinatown Impact Study, conducting multilingual focus groups, detailed visitation analyses, and assessments of federal aid accessibility. This foundational research, which received coverage in Curbed and The Village Sun, revealed unique cultural, language, and socioeconomic barriers hampering recovery efforts. Building on these insights, we subsequently developed operational and programming strategies for Welcome to Chinatown’s Small Business Innovation Hub, a centralized physical hub that provides meeting, coworking, and incubation space for AAPI entrepreneurs and community organizations. We also created a roadmap for Welcome to Chinatown to support legacy small business owners with succession planning to ensure they are able to monetize their life’s work while passing on traditions and spaces that help define Chinatown. Most recently, we provided program management support for the annual Chinatown Solidarity Summit, hosted at the Small Business Innovation Hub, further strengthening ties among North American Chinatown leaders.

Also starting in 2022, HR&A was the planning lead for the Chinatown Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), a State-funded program that brought together more than 15 neighborhood leaders with City and State agencies to define a vision for the future of Chinatown and prioritize capital projects to address longstanding challenges and set up the next decade of community-led growth and investment. As a result of the DRI effort—for which HR&A led all economic analysis, community facilitation, and project evaluation—the State’s $20 million grant was leveraged to attract nearly $45 million in funding from the City of New York to advance a transformative redesign of Chinatown’s southern gateway at Chatham Square.

Our work has enabled Welcome to Chinatown’s evolution from an emergency relief organization to a sustainable community nonprofit while advancing critical neighborhood investments. The Small Business Innovation Hub, which opened in 2024, now provides targeted resources to both established businesses and entrepreneurs. Our succession planning roadmap is guiding new programs that facilitate responsible transitions for legacy business owners. Planned capital improvements—known as Chinatown Connections—include long-desired upgrades to Park Row designed to increase foot traffic between Lower Manhattan and Chinatown to support small business recovery. This integrated, multi-year engagement demonstrates HR&A’s ability to combine rigorous economic analysis with practical implementation strategies that preserve neighborhood character while building economic resilience—creating meaningful impact that extends beyond individual businesses to sustain the cultural fabric of an iconic New York City neighborhood.

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Impact Study

Press:

Saving Chinatown, While Also Making It Their Own — NY Times

Welcome to Chinatown breaks ground on Manhattan’s inaugural Small Business Innovation Hub in Chinatown — AMNY

Now it’s bare’: NYC’s Chinatown small businesses battle to keep doors open — ABC News

Ending New York City’s Foster Care to Homelessness Pipeline

November 17, 2025 / Comments Off

Thrust into New York City’s impossibly tight housing market, youth in and exiting foster care face extreme housing precarity and, too often, homelessness. HR&A is proud to support the Center for Fair Futures’ new report, Housing Justice for Young People Aging out of Foster Care in New York City, which lays out a five-year plan to provide 800 new homes for youth exiting foster care. The findings in this report present an opportunity for policymakers, service providers, and mission-driven investors to come together to prevent homelessness for a uniquely at-risk population.

National research has found that 31 to 46 percent of transition-aged foster youth had experienced homelessness at least once before they turned 26. In New York City, of the 429 youth who aged out of foster care in 2023, 31 percent had to stay in a foster or group home because they simply had no other housing options.

HR&A was honored to design and implement the Fair Futures Housing Design Fellowship, through which we engaged six youth leaders who struggled to find housing after leaving foster care, shared information on affordable housing development in New York City, and supported the Fellows to articulate new quality standards that all housing for young people aging out of care should meet.

Equipped with this youth-led definition of quality housing, HR&A modeled three opportunities to blend traditional, market-driven private investment with mission-motivated capital, generating returns of 4% – 6% for mission-aligned funders. Our research finds that through a mixture of private capital and policy change, there is a viable pathway to set aside – over five years – 800 homes for youth exiting the system, effectively ending the City’s foster care to homelessness and housing insecurity pipeline.

Housing Justice for Young People Aging out of Foster Care in New York City articulates a clear policy and financing roadmap to dramatically curtail homelessness and housing insecurity among youth impacted by foster care. We are grateful to our partners The Center for Fair Futures, The Children’s Village, and Good River Partners, and to The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for providing funding to support the project.

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Read the Full Report: “Housing Justice for Young People Aging out of Foster Care in New York City”

New Report Charts Vision to End New York City’s Foster Care to Homelessness Pipeline

Youth Launch Bold Strategy to End NYC’s Foster Care to Homelessness Pipeline

Press

Wanted: Financing for quality housing for youth exiting foster care — ImpactAlpha

Young people are stuck longer in foster care because they can’t find housing, report says — Gothamist

Report Charts Vision to End NYC’s Foster Care to Homelessness Pipeline —Patch

Opinion: How 800 Homes in Desirable Communities Could Disrupt a System-to-Homelessness Pipeline — City Limits

Morning Headlines: Aged Out Foster Youth Struggle to Find Housing, City Delays Trash Zone Reform, and Wildfire Smoke Impacts Air Quality — WNYC

Initiative to secure permanent housing for adults aging out of foster care — Spectrum News NY1

Report Charts Path to Create Housing for NYC Youth Aging Out of Foster Care — Affordable Housing Finance

Blue Line Corridor Vision and Implementation Strategy

April 11, 2025 / Comments Off

HR&A led an interdisciplinary team to develop a transformative vision and implementation strategy for Prince George’s County’s Blue Line Corridor, a 6-mile stretch along Central Avenue in Maryland. This comprehensive plan has already secured over $450M in state funding and bonding capacity for priority capital projects including a youth sports fieldhouse, amphitheater, central library and cultural center, market hall, and multimodal infrastructure while establishing a replicable model for place-based economic development countywide.

Working with Design Collective and Toole Design Group, HR&A crafted a 30-year development roadmap for this transit-rich corridor, served by four Blue and Silver Line Metro stations. The vision identified capital improvements and new anchor institutions and facilities to catalyze private investment in dense, transit-oriented development stations. The team coordinated across County and State agencies and WMATA to align objectives, leverage resources, identify obstacles, and recommend new legislative and financial tools to maximize economic potential.

The vision became the centerpiece of the County Executive’s 2021 State of the County address and continues to guide implementation. HR&A remains actively involved, facilitating an interagency working group, conducting feasibility studies, and advancing capital improvement projects. These efforts ensure the ambitious vision moves from concept to reality with strategic oversight.

HR&A also developed County-specific enabling legislation (Maryland House Bill 1109) to establish business improvement districts in Prince George’s County, adopted in April 2023. The Blue Line Corridor BID is being specifically designed to ensure inclusive development that benefits existing communities while attracting new investment. This innovative approach ensures that economic growth along the corridor supports both existing residents and businesses while creating vibrant, accessible places for all county residents.

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Prince George’s County Breaks Ground on Civic Plaza, The First Signature Project of The Blue Line Corridor Initiative – Prince George’s Country MD

Photo: Jackie Hicks and Prince George’s County

Westchester County’s Housing Flex Fund

November 20, 2024 / Comments Off

On behalf of Westchester County’s Department of Planning, HR&A Advisors designed and implemented a new $90M fund to allocate the County’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The Flex Fund is projected to support the development of approximately 1,500 new affordable homes across the county.

HR&A began with analyzing the County’s housing market conditions and evaluating existing affordable housing programs administered by the County, public housing authorities, local municipalities, and other public entities. HR&A conducted a series of interviews with key local and regional housing developers to understand their development pipelines and any barriers they felt obstructed the development of workforce and affordable housing development in the county. Based on a combination of these quantitative and qualitative findings, HR&A recommended the creation of a new two-year Housing Flex Fund, designed to meet the market’s short-term needs and strengthen the affordable housing system in the long-term.

In preparation for the project’s implementation phase, HR&A analyzed the financial proformas of 10 recently completed affordable housing deals and modeled 15 alternative funding scenarios to understand how the Housing Flex Fund could impact forthcoming housing deals — including Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and non-LIHTC deals alike. HR&A recommended an approval process that built on the strengths of existing funding processes while providing greater flexibility and an expedited funding timeline.

Working in close consultation with County staff, HR&A established an approval process and project scoring criteria. The scoring criteria and approval process ensure that the Housing Flex Fund will maximally achieve the County’s public policy goals. HR&A also supported the County in scoring all of the applications received and underwriting selected potential projects for investment.

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Learn more about the Housing Flex Fund on Westchester County’s website

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Westchester County launches Housing Flex Fund —NY Real Estate Journal

Westchester $100M program expected to increase new affordable housing units — Westfair Business Journal

Amazon Housing Fund

November 20, 2024 / Comments Off

HR&A is supporting program design and implementation for Amazon’s Housing Fund, a $2 billion commitment to preserve existing housing and create inclusive housing developments through below-market loans and grants to developers, public agencies, and minority-led organizations. HR&A led negotiation and underwriting efforts for over 9,000 new affordable homes in the Washington DC area and will continue to support Amazon with their additional commitment of $1.4 billion.

HR&A Advisors has been working with Amazon since 2020 to help develop and implement the Amazon Housing Fund, which was founded to help increase affordable housing opportunities in locations where Amazon has a significant presence. In cities like Washington D.C., Nashville, Austin, and Seattle, among others, we have helped Amazon address affordable housing shortages via subsidized loans, grants, and partnerships with local governments and nonprofits. Since helping design and then launch the program in January 2021, we have supported Amazon’s efforts to preserve 21,000+ homes and have underwritten and closed over $1B in housing transactions for the public sector and impact investors. A key tenant of the AHEF is also to provide access to capital for minority-led developers, resulting in 62% of these transactions supporting BIPOC-led developers. 

To develop a large-scale portfolio investment strategy for housing affordability, HR&A created an affordable housing finance summary of potential investment strategies, conducted a landscape analysis of peer investments in housing, worked with Amazon to refine investment goals and priorities, and developed a clear and concise financial framework to evaluate potential investment options. HR&A conducted an initial market scan in target geographies, assessed the housing need in those geographies to evaluate programmatic components, and conducted high-level financial analysis to test investment portfolio scenarios.

After the first phase leveraging Amazon’s initial $2 billion investment to preserve 21,000+ homes and positively impact 46,000+ residents, Amazon committed an additional $1.4 billion for a second phase.

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Check out the Amazon Housing Equity Fund’s website

Learn about Amazon’s second round of $1.4 billion in funding

2024 Amazon Housing Equity Fund Impact Report

Press

Q&A with Senthil Sankaran, Managing Principal, Amazon Housing Equity Fund — UrbanLand Magazine

Amazon Promised to Deliver Affordable Housing. How’s It Doing? — Bloomberg

Everything you need to know about Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund—a $3.6 billion commitment to help people access affordable housing — Amazon

Op-Ed: A Simple Housing Fix for Wake County —  INDYweek

City of Boston Downtown Office Conversion Study

November 20, 2024 / Comments Off

HR&A supported the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) in studying the feasibility of converting vacant downtown offices to residences through subsidies, tax incentives, and expedited permitting, which resulted in the City launching an office conversion pilot program. Since its launch in October 2023, the program has received applications proposing 400 new homes, and in 2024 the City extended the pilot with $15 million in new funding from the State.

This study is part of an ongoing effort by the City of Boston to generate strategies and initiatives that can revitalize Boston’s Downtown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shifts in how we work, office space utilization and commuting patterns have resulted in lower tax revenue for the City of Boston as well as less foot traffic to support retail options and a safe and active street-level experience. HR&A analyzed potential new uses for vacant and underperforming office buildings, the costs associated with conversion, incentives for spurring conversions, and the impacts of repositioning office buildings on the city, its workers, residents, and visitors.

Based on our findings, HR&A recommended an actionable tax abatement to successfully convert vacant Downtown office spaces to viable uses. The project entailed data review and market analysis; building type inventory and reuse assessment; stakeholder interviews; financial analysis; funding strategies; and policy recommendations.

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Read the full Study

Learn about the Program

Mayor Wu Announces Extension of Office to Residential Conversion Program with Partnership From The State

Press

Converting Boston’s offices to housing is tricky, but it’s starting to happen — WBUR

Boston’s downtown office to residential conversion program gets $15M state boost — Boston Herald

Boston extends office-to-housing conversion program until 2025 — Axios

Why converting Boston’s empty offices to homes is harder than it looks — Axios

New Haven Inclusionary Housing Framework

November 20, 2024 / Comments Off

In response to input from residents, affordable housing advocates and developers, the City of New Haven engaged HR&A to develop an inclusionary zoning policy that ensures long-term affordability, inclusive growth, and thriving neighborhoods. Over 50 affordable homes have been approved since the ordinance’s approval in 2022.

HR&A reviewed existing real estate market conditions, assessed potential incentive tools, and engaged key public and private sector stakeholders across neighborhoods to understand the housing landscape throughout New Haven. This informed our financial pro forma analyses to evaluate development scenarios for a range of building typologies and submarkets.

Our analysis measured the impact of an Inclusionary Zoning policy at different levels of housing affordability and assessed various land use and financial incentives that could maximize affordable housing production. Based on these findings, HR&A created an inclusionary policy for New Haven that balances housing policy priorities by targeting inclusionary requirements to align with local market strength, and we assisted the City in developing a framework and manual for implementation and administration of the policy.

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Ordinance and map

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“Inclusionary” Housing Law Passes — New Haven Independent

City officials and advocates reflect on two terms of Elicker’s housing policy — Yale News

State of Maine Housing Study

November 20, 2024 / Comments Off

HR&A worked with the Maine Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation to develop a study to understand housing needs and deficits along with their impacts on Maine’s economy. Our study found that 76,400–84,300 new homes need to be built within the next 7 years to maintain Maine’s economic growth.

After the plan helped establish a deeper understanding of housing needs across the state, we launched a public data portal, which maps the housing crisis across the State to help highlight each region’s specific needs and measure progress toward the study’s recommended housing production goals.

HR&A engaged stakeholders through a Technical Working Group that provided input and feedback throughout the analysis. The study analyzed existing housing production gaps across the state and projected future housing needs based on job and population growth. We explored different regions across the State of Maine, and our Study functions as a municipal planning tool to support Maine’s LD 2003 legislation, which aims to reduce barriers to housing production across the state.

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Mills Administration and MaineHousing Announce Launch of New Statewide Housing Data Portal

Maine Housing Data Portal

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“This is how much new housing Maine needs to fix crisis” — Bangor Daily News

“Maine needs 84,000 new homes in the next 7 years, report finds” — Portland Press Herald

“Maine needs at least 84,000 new homes within seven years, study says” — Maine Public

 “Housing crisis worse than ever: New study calls for 80,000+ new homes in Maine” — 13 WGME

Charlottesville Affordable Housing Plan

November 19, 2024 / Comments Off

HR&A developed an Affordable Housing Plan for the City of Charlottesville that centers racial equity and regional collaboration to guide the city’s investments in affordable housing programs and policies. Charlottesville has made significant progress on the Plan’s three major initiatives including: dedicating $10M a year to affordable housing, building inclusive governance throughout the City’s housing ecosystem, and adopting progressive, inclusionary zoning reforms — all of which are shaping a denser, more economically diverse Charlottesville.

As part of the planning process, we worked with multiple stakeholder groups to understand the existing affordable housing landscape in Charlottesville — assessing existing challenges and building consensus around proposed solutions. With this input, the HR&A team developed a robust Affordable Housing Plan that included actionable solutions stakeholders were already invested in. The City approved the plan in March 2021, and our work informed related efforts to update the City’s comprehensive plan and zoning code.

Following the Affordable Housing Plan’s adoption, we continued working with the City and the planning team to evaluate the feasibility of a new inclusionary zoning policy. The team used a series of financial models based on Charlottesville’s existing market conditions and land use plans to determine the feasibility of requiring affordable housing production as a percentage of all new housing development by offering density bonuses or other incentives. We tested various scenarios for incentives and affordability requirements as well as multiple development types.

The team also reviewed the Future Land Use Map’s requirements and established market and development assumptions to evaluate the rate of change of the policy’s impact on property value and new housing production. The final recommendations of the study were implemented into Charlottesville’s new Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) Policy, which was unanimously approved by the City Council in December 2023.

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Read the Plan

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“It’s finally here: Charlottesville has a new zoning ordinance”— Charlottesville Tomorrow