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ULI Philadelphia Community Workshop to Teach Resident Stakeholders about the Development Process
In October 2021, ULI Philadelphia held its first in person, UrbanPlan for Communities workshop.
On November 16th, real estate experts, ULI members and industry professionals met to share strategies and best practices on developing a more resilient region in the face of compounding challenges, and discuss Philadelphia’s position among national trends detailed in the Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2022 report released by ULI and PwC on October 14th. Hundreds of ULI members and public and private industry leaders joined ULI Philadelphia for its 22nd Annual Real Estate Forecast, delivered both in person and virtually. Key local leaders across sectors addressed unprecedented vulnerabilities including climate change, public health, cybersecurity, infrastructure, and supply chain challenges. Despite these concerns, practitioners remained optimistic about the year ahead provided strong market fundamentals.
The report noted of the past year “The theme that emerged more than any other during the Emerging Trends interviews with industry leaders was the surprising resilience of the economy and of property markets generally, inspiring greater confidence in the industry’s collective capacity to adapt to changing market conditions and future unknown risks,” a theme consistent in this year’s local discussions.
Former Mayor Michael Nutter, during a fireside chat with John Grady of Wexford Science and Technology discussed the need for cross-sector collaboration, noting “Leadership does not only reside at City Hall, in Harrisburg, or in Washington… All of this disruption creates opportunity for people to step up.” Nutter and Grady went on to discuss how the public and private sectors can work together to set and achieve bold goals to create a more resilient city.
Later, a local panel of experts, moderated by Saleem Chapman, Chief Resilience Officer of the City of Philadelphia, explored resilience from the perspectives of supply chain, cybersecurity, and climate change. The panel discussed the need for a systemic approach to building resiliency, noting that focusing on just one piece of a system will not create the desired outcome.
Bill Staffieri, Partner, PWC presented the findings of the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2022 Report. In recognizing industry optimism for the year ahead, including at higher levels in the Philadelphia region compared to the national average, Staffieri noted “84% of survey respondents have said [2022] is going to be good to excellent for their businesses, and that’s the best we’ve seen since 2016.”
Trends highlighted in the report include the following:
The final panel of the main program, moderated by Lauren Gilchrist of Longfellow Real Estate Partners explored how these trends are playing out locally in various asset classes. In particular, Gilchrist noted the striking similarity between the growth of industrial over the last five years, and the growth of Life Sciences today, with an emphasis on the need for housing that meets the needs and preferences of those workforces.
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About ULI Philadelphia
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) is a nonprofit education and research institute whose mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. Established in 1936, ULI today has more than 45,000 members around the globe representing the entire spectrum of land use and development disciplines. The Philadelphia District Council (ULI Philadelphia) includes nearly 900 members throughout the Philadelphia metro, Central Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware. For more information, please visit philadelphia.uli.org.
About Emerging Trends in Real Estate ®
Emerging Trends in Real Estate® is a trends and forecast publication now in its 43rd edition, and is one of the most highly regarded and widely read forecast reports in the real estate industry. Emerging Trends in Real Estate® 2022, undertaken jointly by PwC and the Urban Land Institute, provides an outlook on real estate investment and development trends, real estate finance and capital markets, property sectors, metropolitan areas, and other real estate issues throughout the United States and Canada.
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