Practice Area Archives - Page 3 of 8

Creating a Racial Equity Agenda for the United States Conference of Mayors

August 27, 2018 / Comments Off

The United States Conference of Mayors developed a comprehensive understanding of the programs, policies, and projects that are effectively advancing racial equity across the country.

CHALLENGE

Across the country, discriminatory policies and practices have created lasting disparities in social and economic outcomes across races. To work against this harmful legacy, the United States Conference of Mayors, with its strong tradition of leadership on issues of civil rights and social justice, is using its national platform to help mayors and cities understand and implement the policies and practices that can reduce racial inequities in cities.

The organization engaged HR&A to survey existing racial equity programs in cities and create a set of recommendations for how it could help member cities proactively make meaningful change in their policies and practices.

Solution

To understand their most pressing challenges, we interviewed mayors and staff from 13 cities. The collective feedback showed that some cities are incorporating racial equity through place-based initiatives, programmatic initiatives, and policy change. Additionally, cities are seeking help from external partners to directly address race in their communities. We learned the importance of mayoral leadership and that clear definitions of equity are needed to translate commitments into practice. Synthesizing our findings, we outlined the ways that the U.S. Conference of Mayors could serve as an important convener for mayors and a source of best practice and technical assistance.

Our deepest insight emerged from our conversations with economic development departments. Unlike many social services, these functions are siloed from conversations on racial disparity even though they are charged with decisions that impact the physical, demographic, and economic realities of communities. This insight helped us design a program that would connect these departments with training, resources, and technical assistance to embed equity into daily practice.

READ THE BRIEF

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.

Capacity Building for the National Disaster Resilience Competition

July 10, 2018 / Comments Off

The National Disaster Resilience Competition institutionalized the practice of resilience in cities across the country.

CHALLENGE

To confront increasing physical vulnerability to the effects of climate change and decreasing public funding available for infrastructure and community development, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Rockefeller Foundation partnered to transform resilience building policy and practice through the National Disaster Resilience Competition. In 2014, President Obama allocated $1 billion in HUD funding to competition winners, which were selected from places that suffered presidentially-declared disasters between 2011 and 2013.

Solution

HR&A supported the Rockefeller Foundation’s management of the program, providing technical support for 67 cities, states, and counties as each prepared competition submissions. This work ensured that the projects and programs would respond to a broad array of climate-related risk, and address social, economic and environmental challenges. HR&A also designed and delivered a capacity-building program for participants that provided individual technical support to teams to guide them through proposal development; regional “Resilience Academies” that brought together a network of experts to support teams in assessing risk and developing strategies and projects to address them; and tools and other resources to help interpret HUD guidance.

IMPACT

The competition enhanced local, state, and regional resilience techniques by offering resources and encouraging partnerships to amplify potential financial and social benefits activated by federal funds. In 2016, HUD announced the 13 winning cities, states, and counties of the $1 billion competition. Funded projects include state watershed, coastal protection, community flood grant, and public housing resilience pilot programs; and coastal wetland and rural river resilience efforts among other projects.
Following the awards, the Rockefeller Foundation engaged HR&A to incorporate workshop teachings into a permanent resilience curriculum, which was deployed across the world through the Global Resilience Academy.

Solicitation & Transaction Management for the Salesforce Transit Center

June 13, 2018 / Comments Off

The Transbay Joint Powers Authority successfully procured a facility management and programming partner for the $2.26 billion Salesforce Transit Center.

CHALLENGE

The Transbay Joint Powers Authority was established to design, build, operate, and maintain the world-class Salesforce Transit Center in downtown San Francisco. Intent on maintaining its compact team and clear focus on transit, the Authority sought a private-sector partner to manage the facility’s 90,000 square feet of commercial and retail space, rooftop park, robust public art program, and significant digital advertising assets.

The Authority’s leadership engaged HR&A to identify the appropriate public-private partnership structure and solicitation process that would attract the right partner for this iconic piece of American infrastructure.

Solution

Working closely with the Authority’s leadership, the team defined a set of principles for a public-private partnership structure that would enable the Authority to maintain ownership of the transit center, generate an economic return, retain oversight of center operations, minimize risk associated with operations and maintenance of the non-transit program, and most importantly – provide a world class experience for the 50,000 daily riders, workers, and shoppers who will visit the transit center.

With these principles in place, HR&A drafted and released a solicitation, and marketed the opportunity to local and national real estate development, facilities, open space, and digital media management firms. The team guided the Authority’s evaluation committee through the respondent review, interview, and selection of the preferred asset management team.

To ensure the agreement terms incentivized performance and a timely ramp-up to stabilization of operations, HR&A worked with the Authority’s legal counsel through negotiations.

IMPACT

After attracting a number of strong proposals and selecting a preferred asset manager, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority executed an asset management agreement meeting all of its criteria with an interdisciplinary team led by Lincoln Property Company.

Land Disposition Strategy & Solicitation and Transaction Support for Mecklenburg County

June 13, 2018 / Comments Off

Mecklenburg County successfully secured a master redevelopment agreement to transform underutilized county-owned sites into vibrant mixed-use development.

CHALLENGE

In 2015, Mecklenburg County owned a set of valuable sites with significant redevelopment potential in Charlotte’s growing Uptown, but lacked a clear path to realizing policy goals on the sites, including the generation of revenue and delivery of open space, affordable housing, and new infrastructure. The County required analytical support and strategic guidance to understand the market and surrounding development climate, and move toward a plan for action around each of the sites.

Solution

HR&A led the County through a land disposition strategy planning process, providing recommendations for site disposition sequence and strategies that would attract a strong response from the real estate development community. Core work during this stage included: identifying the highest and best use program for each site, testing program alternatives to understand the impact of incorporating policy priorities included affordable housing and infrastructure improvement within each site, developing a valuation for each site and estimating the associated fiscal impacts to the County, and evaluating options for disposition timing and solicitation processes.

The County elected to move forward on disposition for two sites in the Second Ward. HR&A supported the drafting, marketing, and release of a Request for Qualifications and subsequent Request for Proposals for Brooklyn Village and Walton Plaza. Our team ensured that the development community was aware of the opportunity associated with these sites and that solicitation documents clearly conveyed the County’s goals for a public private partnership to deliver a significant new mixed-use program and key public benefits, including open space, affordable housing, and new infrastructure across 16 acres, which will transform this area of Uptown Charlotte.

IMPACT

The County’s solicitations received strong responses from local and national developers. HR&A guided the development of criteria for the County’s evaluation of proposals and performed an independent evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each, including a comparison of the economic proposals. Once the County selected a developer, HR&A supported negotiations of key business terms with the preferred development team, BK Partners, a collaboration between local developer Conformity Corporation and the Peebles Corporation. The County and BK Partners executed a term sheet in August 2017, and the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners approved a master redevelopment agreement between the County and BK Partners in July 2018.