Economic Development Strategy Archives - Page 2 of 4

King's Drive and Walker's Point Equitable Transit Oriented Development

Commercial and Residential Affordability Study

August 27, 2018 / Comments Off

After planning a new streetcar line, the City of Milwaukee created an affordability strategy to mitigate the potential displacement of residents and businesses in existing neighborhoods due to increased market demand.

CHALLENGE

Too often, infrastructure improvements spark patterns of development and neighborhood change that inadvertently displace the very people who would benefit from those investments the most. The City of Milwaukee, while planning a new streetcar line to connect the Walker’s Point and King Drive neighborhoods to the City’s historic core, wanted to ensure that the people living and working in these neighborhoods would benefit from the transit investment and the market demand it creates.

The City of Milwaukee engaged HR&A to analyze how new development driven by the streetcar could strengthen neighborhoods and create better connections within the city. Additionally, the City wanted to understand its options for ensuring that residential, commercial, and retail rents could remain affordable to existing residents.

Solution

To clarify the expected market demand associated with the new streetcar, HR&A evaluated the local real estate market, trends, and demographics, and explored whether gentrification and displacement occurred under existing market conditions.

This market analysis informed the city’s understanding of future development needs, and the city further engaged the team to identify appropriate commercial development and tenant types, as well as a phasing strategy for the implementation of a detailed tenanting strategy.

HR&A also explored state and local policy to recommend tools that would achieve the city’s goals of (1) retaining residents and neighborhood character, (2) increasing affordable and mixed-use development, and (3) improving housing quality and homeownership prospects for area residents. To maintain the affordability of retail spaces, HR&A recommended the city develop new programs that would allow existing businesses to benefit from the transit investment, empower local entrepreneurs – including minority and women-owned businesses, and create a mix of jobs that are accessible to the existing community.

Impact

HR&A identified and described a series of effective housing and retail affordability programs to inform ongoing City planning conversations. HR&A rated the potential impact of each of affordability mechanism against City goals to develop a suite of recommended priority options for further consideration.

READ THE REPORT HERE

Innovation Asset Assessment for Lehigh University

August 24, 2018 / Comments Off

Lehigh University identified its best opportunities for development that reflect the university’s programmatic and innovation strengths, as well as the real estate potential of the Lehigh Valley.

CHALLENGE

Lehigh University, a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, sought to strengthen its research capabilities by building its first innovation campus and redeveloping two additional non-core campuses. As a growing regional university in a tertiary market, Lehigh’s real estate group wanted to better understand the program alignment for an innovation campus and the market potential for real estate development and industry partnerships. HR&A worked with Lehigh’s real estate team to generate excitement and momentum for the redevelopment of its non-core real estate assets by crafting a feasible development vision and detailed strategies for development, funding, activation, and governance.

Solution

Through HR&A’s analysis of market potential, discussions with industry leaders in the Lehigh Valley, and collaboration with some of Lehigh University’s top academic researchers, HR&A recommended a holistic redevelopment approach.

The university would align its campuses around the development of new concepts and ideas, where each campus offers unique opportunities to entrepreneurs and researchers at every stage of business development – from basic research through start-ups and maturation. This work guided the university’s in moving forward with a clear vision and actionable strategies for each campus to foster innovation in Lehigh Valley and elevate the university’s standing as a premiere research university.

Impact

As of August 2018, the University is moving forward with a solicitation process to identify a private sector partner for a revenue-positive first phase of redevelopment.

Innovation District Roadmap for the University of Georgia

August 24, 2018 / Comments Off

The University of Georgia created a roadmap to focus the development goals, priorities, and feasibility of a future innovation district.

CHALLENGE

The University of Georgia, one of the country’s oldest public universities, is quickly becoming a premiere destination for higher-education. Seeking to further strengthen its position as a one of the top 20 public universities in the country, the university is creating a research campus to host its research and innovation activities. To understand the process and resources needed to create a research campus, the university’s real estate team hired HR&A to evaluate the operational and financial feasibility of such a project.

Solution

HR&A assessed the university’s innovation, technology, and research strengths and weaknesses through stakeholder interviews and a review of innovation districts and research centers at peer universities. Working collaboratively with a real estate task force, HR&A and the university used its extensive understanding of university processes, innovation ecosystems, and implementation strategies to create development guidelines for a financially sustainable innovation district. These guidelines identified strategies to develop through private sector partnerships, grow university research opportunities, and produce a convergent environment unique to the University of Georgia.

Impact

HR&A’s recommendations focused the task force’s future development of the district on the development of a convergent innovation center that would include space for productive uses open to for entrepreneurs, community members, and students. The convergent innovation center will be activated and programmed by a variety of university programs and activities that focus on economic development, industry partnerships, and entrepreneurship.

Revenue and Ridership Analysis of Commuter Parking & Transit-Oriented Development

August 23, 2018 / Comments Off

With HR&A’s parking and ridership forecast model, MARTA can confidently evaluate the financial implications of providing free commuter parking and transit-oriented development.

CHALLENGE

$2.8 billion in new transit funding, rapid regional growth, and an unexpected spike in ridership – due to the emergency closure of a major transportation artery – compelled MARTA to evaluate and identify the appropriate level of commuter parking capacity along its rail system. Station parking, which is free for commuters, represents a significant cost to MARTA, and replacement requirements for existing parking reduce the financial feasibility of building transit-oriented developments at stations – which could bring new riders and revenue to the system.

To better understand the appropriate balance between providing enough parking to meet demand and creating new transit-oriented development opportunities at stations, MARTA engaged HR&A to create a flexible modeling tool that allows the agency to evaluate the financial and ridership implications of supporting different levels of parking and transit-oriented development at each station.

Solution

HR&A developed a model to forecast the changes in demand for parking through 2040 at five MARTA stations. This model relied on regression analysis to identify the relationship between parking demand and observable conditions, then used regional transit planning growth projections to forecast demand. Working with transportation consultants Fehr & Peers, the team created a flexible, user-friendly evaluation tool from the model, which details the impact of transit-oriented development and parking scenarios on anticipated MARTA revenue and ridership.

Impact

HR&A is now working with MARTA to expand the tool to the remaining 18 stations with parking facilities in the rail system. In addition, MARTA anticipates using the tool to support its negotiations with a development partner for the second phase of the Edgewood-Candler Station transit-oriented development project and future transit-oriented projects. The tool will help inform the optimal level of replacement parking required of the developer.

Multifamily Affordable Housing Strategy for the City of Detroit

July 20, 2018 / Comments Off

The City of Detroit’s Multifamily Affordable Housing Strategy provides a blueprint for related City policy, driving toward the goal of preserving and developing 12,000 multifamily affordable units by 2023

CHALLENGE

As Detroit’s housing market recovers from decades of disinvestment, some residents are unable to find adequate and affordable housing in the city. In some areas, demand is increasing for urban amenities and housing costs are rising. Elsewhere in the city, other neighborhoods face steep obstacles to regaining economic strength.

While the City’s Housing and Revitalization Department is actively promoting preservation and new development of affordable housing since the City’s emergence from bankruptcy in 2014, it did not have a formalized strategy for pursuing policies and programs to realize its equitable growth goals. Such a strategy would allow the City to proactively message its affordable housing goals to the market and track progress against those goals.

Solution

To guide the City’s future initiatives related to affordable housing development and preservation, inclusive growth, homelessness, and housing development in priority planning areas of the city, HR&A worked closely with the City to develop a public-facing housing strategy document that expressed the City of Detroit’s housing priorities and established a formalized plan for implementation.

HR&A reviewed our previous assessment of Detroit’s housing market, which tested the feasibility and impact of affordable housing policies and recommended those that would be most effective in Detroit. The knowledge developed in this stage of work was key in developing a strategy outline and coordinating the drafting of content for all initiatives with support from the City and partner organizations. Finally, HR&A oversaw the production of a document designed for public release. HR&A brought a unique combination of experience in national affordable housing policy analysis and a recent, in-depth understanding of multifamily affordable housing and the multifamily market in Detroit to the strategy’s development.

Impact

The city released its Multifamily Affordable Housing Strategy in the spring of 2018 with the goal of preserving 10,000 existing affordable units and developing 2,000 new affordable units by 2023. As the first strategy of its kind in Detroit in decades, the document will guide the City’s future work of ensuring new growth is equitable and that residents of all incomes have quality housing accessible to public transit, employment hubs, and other essential services. The City has already established an affordable housing loan fund and is implementing initial strategies arising from the study.

Read the Full Study

Joint Development Program and Affordable Housing Policy Analysis

July 13, 2018 / Comments Off

By assessing its existing programs, MARTA gained new insight on strategies to improve the effectiveness of its transit-oriented development programs and affordable housing policies.

CHALLENGE

Five years after adopting new guidelines to frame its approach to transit-oriented development, MARTA’s board of directors sought to assess the program’s effectiveness in promoting dense, mixed-use development with a great public realm, and to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, the board required a more precise understanding of how the agency’s affordable housing policy affected the viability of joint development deals, and how to attract a larger pool of national developers to its joint development solicitations.

Solution

To understand the baseline performance of MARTA’s programs, HR&A reviewed regional and local development trends and plans, identified the performance and pain points of the agency’s existing joint development, and benchmarked the agency’s TOD and affordable housing programs with peer city agencies. HR&A also analyzed MARTA’s property portfolio for future TOD potential, giving MARTA the ability to prioritize appropriate stations for pre-solicitation market studies, feasibility analyses, and community visioning.

HR&A recommended the agency establish an independent contracting and procurement authority for MARTA’s real estate office, which would simplify the solicitation program and enable the real estate office to work at the pace of private development partners. To unlock more creative funding sources for affordable housing and build support community revitalization goals, HR&A recommended the agency strengthen partnerships with regional housing and economic development organizations and local municipal development partners.

Impact

MARTA demonstrated that its TOD program performs on par with peer agencies and identified actions to improve effectiveness. MARTA anticipates it will attract a greater pool of national development partners and improve development partnerships and outcomes.

Joint Development Guidelines for Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail Corridor

July 13, 2018 / Comments Off

LA Metro is supporting the economic and physical development of Los Angeles communities through its Transit-Oriented Communities Program.

CHALLENGE

In 2008, Los Angeles County voters showed their overwhelming support for Measure R, which solidified a groundbreaking plan to double the length of the commuter rail system by 2035. To ensure that this major investment in the rail network produces wide-ranging benefits in the communities that it serves, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) launched the Transit-Oriented Communities Demonstration Program, a comprehensive approach to facilitating joint-development on the land it owns around transit stations.

As part of the program’s implementation, Metro engaged HR&A to support the development of program and design guidelines that incorporate broad community objectives – like community development, economic development, and multi-modal mobility – into joint development projects along the Crenshaw/LAX light rail corridor.

Solution

To define the appropriate scale and character of supportable development at each station area, HR&A analyzed market demand for key land uses at each station and tested the financial feasibility of potential development scenarios through pro forma financial modeling. Our financial feasibility testing placed a significant emphasis on potential opportunities that would likely result with the introduction of rail transit.

Also, to incorporate community input and feedback, HR&A attended and facilitated a series of community stakeholder meetings at each station area.

After using HR&A’s recommendations to develop overarching vision and design guidelines, Metro issued final development guidelines for the Fairview Heights and Expo/Crenshaw station areas in June 2016.

IMPACT

Building upon the development guidelines, Metro issued a Request for Proposals for a joint-development opportunity at the Expo/Crenshaw Station and selected a subsidiary of Watt Companies, a nationally recognized real estate investment and development firm, for a six-month exclusive negotiation agreement.

The Watt Companies’ initial proposal included many of the program elements recommended by HR&A – affordable housing for residents at the very low-income level, nearly 50,000 square feet of community-serving space, as well as retail spaces targeting locally-owned businesses.

Defining the Economic Impact of WeWork

April 19, 2018 / Comments Off

Challenge

As part of an initiative to shape the future of work and cities, WeWork was interested in demonstrating how the WeWork community creates an economic ripple effect for people, businesses, neighborhoods, and cities.

Solution

To quantify the economic benefits of WeWork to a range of stakeholders interested the company’s growth, HR&A developed the first detailed economic and fiscal impact analysis of WeWork communities in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The analysis focused on WeWork’s value-add to each partner and its crucial role in growing each city’s innovation economy, small business sector, and entrepreneurial community. HR&A built on this by assessing neighborhood-level demographics and market trends, and creating illustrative profiles of WeWork’s members. Finally, HR&A developed projections to estimate how WeWork’s expansion could impact other cities across the U.S.

IMPACT

Our study found that WeWork would be among the largest private-sector employers in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, supporting 50,000 jobs across the three cities. For each member, one additional job is created somewhere else where in the city, in total representing nearly 1% of each city’s workforce. A subsequent report, WeWork’s Global Impact Report 2019, expanded to track impacts the impacts of the company worldwide. Findings from both studies will be incorporated into WeWork’s Future of Work initiative and will continue to support outreach to policymakers as WeWork expands.

Imagine Clearwater

November 8, 2017 / Comments Off

HR&A developed an action-oriented, community-led master plan to activate a 66-acre waterfront site in downtown Clearwater.

CHALLENGE

While Clearwater Beach has witnessed significant growth in recent years, Clearwater’s downtown and its adjacent waterfront have seen less redevelopment, cultural programming, and recreational activity than similar downtown waterfronts in the Tampa Bay region. Clearwater’s downtown waterfront is a beloved civic asset. Home to Coachman Park and the Main Library, the waterfront is an important community gathering place, hosting cultural events that attract visitors from across the region. Nonetheless, citizens across Clearwater recognize that the waterfront and bluff are underutilized assets, including large surface parking lots and the aging Harborview Center, and view an opportunity to transform the area into a destination for all of Clearwater.

SOLUTION

HR&A, working with Sasaki Associates, Kimley-Horn, and B2 Communications, developed a vision to transform Clearwater’s downtown park into an expanded signature space as a way to rebrand downtown, increase visitation, improve connectivity and accessibility, and catalyze adjacent residential development. This plan included a phased redevelopment strategy for potential catalyst sites, a vision and framework for public and private investment, and an action-oriented implementation plan. Throughout the master planning process, HR&A worked with the City to conduct a comprehensive public engagement strategy that included seven community workshops, with over 700 community members participating. Imagine Clearwater, the actionable master plan was presented to City Council, stakeholders, and the general public in January 2017.

RESULTS

Since City Council’s approval of the master plan in early 2017, the City – in partnership with key stakeholders who participated in the master planning process – has moved to make the vision laid out in Imagine Clearwater a reality. In November 2017, Clearwater voters overwhelmingly approved modifications to the City Charter to allow for changes to City-owned parcels along the master plan, a key step in the implementation process. As it continues to seek necessary multijurisdictional approvals, the City is also currently developing a detailed design and engineering scheme for the redevelopment, due to be completed by the mid-late 2020s.

Imagine Boston 2030

June 9, 2017 / Comments Off

Imagine Boston 2030, the city’s first comprehensive plan in 50 years, sets the agenda for future growth, investment, and development.

A historic, land-constrained city with a highly productive workforce and a fast-growing population, Boston’s greatest challenge is one that many growing cities are facing—how can it keep housing affordable, invest in infrastructure, and expand access to opportunity as it grows?

Imagine Boston 2030 is a plan to strengthen the city’s physical assets and encourage equitable economic growth. On behalf of the administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, HR&A used economic, demographic, real estate, environmental, and land use analyses, coupled with input from over 14,000 community members, to guide development of an innovative framework that will enhance and preserve Boston’s historic communities while accommodating long-term population and job growth. Working in partnership with Utile Design and supported by Inkhouse Communications, Greenberg Consultants, Hood Design Studio, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Nelson Nygaard – HR&A estimated the housing and working space needed to accommodate growth and developed a strategy that leverages the City’s physical assets, human capital, and regulatory and financial tools to achieve the City’s goals of affordability, inclusive growth, preparing for climate change, and investing in quality of life improvements.

Through our analysis, we identified three areas requiring customized approaches to growth, enhancement, and preservation—existing neighborhoods, the commercial core, and edge areas. HR&A helped the City to build consensus on a set of initiatives that combined this place-based planning with new policies —ranging from carbon neutrality to anti-displacement measures —to advance the plan’s underlying goals. By combining planning and capital investment with policy, Imagine Boston 2030 will enable the City to firmly guide development of new housing and investment in areas with the ability to support sustainable growth, while ensuring that the benefits of that growth are accessible to more Bostonians.

The final Imagine Boston 2030 plan articulates how the initiatives and priority actions will be funded, led, and measured to ensure success—directly informing the City’s five-year capital plan. Concurrent plans like Climate Ready Boston, Go Boston 2030, and 100 Resilient Cities are other important avenues of progress for the plan’s goals, providing complementary strategies that build off Imagine Boston.