Maritza Mercado Pechin, AICP leads Innovative Finance and Delivery technical assistance for the Build America Bureau at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She focuses on educating and expanding the capacity of public entities to develop and deliver projects with an innovative financing approach. She oversees three technical assistance grant programs, strategic partnerships, project workshops, and emerging projects agreements. Maritza was previously the Deputy Planning Director with the City of Richmond, Virginia where she worked across City departments to lead planning and redevelopment efforts, such as the Diamond District redevelopment, the City Center redevelopment, the US DOT-funded Reconnect Jackson Ward project, the HUD-funded Jackson Ward Community Plan, and the Mellon Foundation-funded Shockoe Heritage Campus. Maritza led the creation of the national award winning Richmond master plan, Richmond 300: A Guide for Growth. She has also served as an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, consultant at AECOM, and development manager at Fulton Hill Properties, a Richmond-based infill developer. Maritza graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard and a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaking at
Thu Apr 11
2:30 PM — 3:30 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time
New York Hilton Midtown - Level 3, Trianon Ballroom
Building the 15-Minute Community: Leadership Strategies in Real Estate and Infrastructure
Fifteen-minute communities hold the promise of accelerating decarbonization, increasing housing affordability, reducing climate and health risks, and fostering social equity. This approach to city building lays a foundation for developing compact, mixed-use, and walkable communities that can increase real estate value, create co-benefits for joint use and co-location, and generate new resources to help invest in local communities. The ULI Curtis Infrastructure Initiative created Building 15-Minute Communities: A Leadership Guide to share actionable leadership strategies across public, private, and nonprofit sectors to decarbonize metro regions with a network of 15-minute transit-oriented communities; diversify urban central business districts into affordable, live-in downtowns; humanize edge cities into heat-proof, resilient, retirement, and child-friendly communities; densify suburban corridors into walkable, mixed-use innovation districts; transform suburban malls into transit and trail-oriented mixed-use communities; and activate exurbs as working landscapes of agrihoods and nature-based solutions. Learn about this practical tool for aligning leadership actions to implementation.