- San Francisco’s Next Chapter: Unlocking Downtown’s Potential Through Office-to-Residential Conversions
- Outlook for Downtown Rejuvenation
- Partner Kate Collignon joins the Gensler podcast to discuss office-to-residential conversions
- Urban Land Institute Panel Provides National Insight on Downtown San Francisco Recovery
- Three Regional Strategies Essential for a Just and Resilient Recovery
- Thinking Outside of the Campus: Strengthening Colleges and Universities by Creating Vibrant Local Communities
Kate Collignon helps cities, institutions, and mission-driven organizations reinvent places for a changing economy. Her work focuses on downtown and neighborhood revitalization, mission-driven real estate, and infrastructure finance.
Kate’s perspective is informed by leadership roles in government and private development, as well as consulting. Before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area to found HR&A’s office there, she spent more than a decade advising public, private, and institutional clients from the firm’s New York headquarters, building on earlier leadership roles at Brookfield Properties and the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Across these roles, her work has included transformative initiatives such as OneNYC, the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, the redevelopment of Coney Island, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Manhattan West. Today, she leads a national practice serving clients across the country.
Kate helps communities reinvent downtowns, neighborhoods, and waterfronts. She advises public agencies, downtown organizations, and institutional leaders on economic feasibility and the governance, regulatory, and incentive strategies needed to attract private investment, support office-to-residential conversions, and strengthen long-term economic resilience. Her experience spans communities ranging from New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Detroit to Erie, PA; North Adams, MA; and Battle Creek, MI.
Kate helps institutions and legacy landowners advance their missions through real estate. She works with organizations seeking to adapt facilities, unlock the value of underutilized properties, expand community impact, and achieve long-term financial sustainability through thoughtful real estate strategies and partnerships. Her clients have included leading cultural institutions, universities, faith-based organizations, research organizations, and transportation agencies, including Houston’s Menil Collection, the University of Pennsylvania, the Research Triangle Foundation, affiliates of Trinity Church Wall Street, and other institutions across the country.
Kate also helps communities fund and deliver infrastructure that enhances economic competitiveness, improves quality of life, and builds long-term resilience. She advises clients on innovative financing, governance, and implementation strategies that enable complex infrastructure investments to move from vision to reality. Her experience spans transit-oriented development, parks and public realm investments, and resilience planning, with work including New York Rising, the Joe Louis Greenway in Detroit, the Razorback Greenway in NW Arkansas, Resilient by Design in the San Francisco Bay Area, and seismic retrofit policy development in San Francisco.
Kate has served on the faculty of NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and currently serves on boards and advisory groups for SPUR, the Urban Land Institute San Francisco, and Lambda Alpha International.
Kate is a graduate of Columbia University, and holds a Master’s in Public Policy and Urban Planning from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
- San Francisco City Advisory Board Member, SPUR
- Vice President, Golden Gate Chapter, Lambda Alpha International
- Executive Board Member, ULI San Francisco
- Member, Public Development and Infrastructure Council, Urban Land Institute
- Member, Public-Private Partnerships Local Product Council, ULI San Francisco
- Member, International Downtown Association
- Member, American Planning Association
- Board Member (former), New Yorkers for Parks
- Board Member (former), Brooklyn Greenway Initiative
- Development Director, Brookfield Properties
- Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
- Senior Vice President for Development, New York City Economic Development Corporation
- Community Development Fellow, NeighborWorks America
- Research Assistant, Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies
- Research Director, Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness
Projects
HR&A collaborated with SPUR, ULI, and Gensler to produce the first-ever study on the economic feasibility of converting vacant downtown San Francisco office buildings to residential use, delivering actionable insights into financial barriers and policy interventions.
HR&A shaped New York City's approach to sustainability and equity through leadership of two landmark planning initiatives spanning over a decade. Our strategic planning for PlaNYC (2007-2011) and OneNYC (2015, 2019) positioned NYC as a national leader in municipal climate action while evolving the city's governance framework to center equity, ultimately aligning $117 billion in capital investments with community-driven priorities.
HR&A collaborated with Brookings Metro, Gensler, and Cara Eckholm Studio to develop a comprehensive study on office-to-residential conversions across six U.S. cities for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This research provides cities with actionable strategies to address housing shortages, repurpose distressed office markets, and revitalize downtowns through data-driven conversion approaches.
After decades of stalled progress caused by fractured ownership and aging infrastructure, HR&A helped SomeraRoad launch transformative redevelopment in Kansas City's West Bottoms. Our economic impact analysis and incentive strategy secured crucial City support for the project's rezoning and financing, aligning public objectives with private investment.
HR&A has guided Research Triangle Park's transformation from a traditional research campus into a vibrant mixed-use innovation district through over a decade of strategic planning and implementation support. Our economic analysis, real estate strategy, and development advisory work informed a 50-year master plan that attracted private development partners and positioned RTP to grow as a regional economic engine for North Carolina.
HR&A positioned Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) to advance office and hotel conversions as a strategy for Downtown Atlanta's future. Our feasibility study analyzed market conditions, developed building typologies with Lord Aeck Sargent and Palacio, modeled financial scenarios, and created a framework for evaluating conversion opportunities and subsidy needs.
HR&A has been at the forefront of New York State's downtown transformation strategy since the Downtown Revitalization Initiative launched. Across seven DRI rounds and two NY Forward rounds, we've led Strategic Investment Plans for 14 communities—from dense urban neighborhoods like Downtown Brooklyn and Jamaica to upstate cities like Jamestown and Central Islip—unlocking over $130 million in state investment and identifying 150+ projects positioned to leverage $300 million in additional funding.
HR&A positioned Philadelphia to reconnect with its Delaware River waterfront through development of a new neighborhood and open space at Penn's Landing. Our work with the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation advanced from the 2011 Master Plan through developer selection in 2020, setting the stage for an 11.5-acre park and 2,000 apartments along with hotel and retail that will transform this 45-acre site.
HR&A Advisors guided the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation through a comprehensive predevelopment planning process that transformed 85 acres of vacant, post-industrial piers into one of New York City's premier waterfront destinations. By creating an innovative self-sustaining funding model and facilitating complex stakeholder engagement, HR&A broke a 20-year implementation stalemate, enabling the award-winning Michael Van Valkenburgh-designed park to move from vision to reality.
