Mission Priority
The Revitalization of the South Bronx
Experience the revitalization of the South Bronx through affordable housing mechanisms and affordable housing at scale in the Mott Haven district with developer L&M.
East 162nd Street Court provides 126 mixed-income rental apartments in a new 12-story building. Thirty-seven units are reserved for formerly homeless families in need of supportive services. L+M and B&B Supportive collaborated with Palladia and Services for the Underserved to provide family supportive services pursuant to a contract with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Services include case management for mental health and substance abuse problems as well as educational and workforce services. The new building includes a separate office space devoted to the provision of these services, a community room, and laundry facilities. The remaining units in the building are reserved for families that earn 60 percent and 80 percent of area median income.
Bronx Point represents a transformative mixed-use development of approximately 530,000-square-feet that will bring affordable housing, educational community facilities, dynamic retail uses, and engaging new open space along the Harlem River waterfront in the South Bronx. It includes 542 units of permanently affordable housing, educational spaces for youth operated by Bronx Works and Billion Oyster Project, and retail opportunities. The Universal Hip Hop Museum will be a new cultural destination that celebrates the global hip hop culture.
Tracing LGBTQ+ Spaces: A Tour of Greenwich Village
Join a walking tour of spaces significant to the Stonewall Uprising in 1969 and the LGBTQ+ movement Stonewall inspired. This tour will visit the historic Stonewall Inn, Washington Square Park, AIDS Memorial, Gay Liberation Monument, Oscar Wilde Bookshop, Gay Street, and the start of the First Pride March.
Homeless to Housed Symposium
ULI Home Attainability Index: Putting the Numbers into Practice
From Finger-Pointing to Handshakes: Reducing Embodied Carbon in Real Estate Developments
Mixed-Income Housing: A Tool for Creating Inclusive Communities
The Architecture of Community Development: Restoration Plaza
In 1968, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation purchased the derelict Sheffield Farms Milk Bottling Plant on Fulton Street in the heart of Bed-Stuy, then home to the nation’s largest African American community. Through a rehabilitation completed in 1972, the site became Restoration Plaza, a 300,000-square-foot commercial plaza that is home to Restoration’s headquarters, the historic Billie Holiday Theatre (BHT), the Skylight Gallery, and scores of local businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies, including a post office; local branches of JP Morgan Chase, Carver Federal Savings Bank, and Citibank; Super Foodtown; a school; and stores. Each year, hundreds of thousands of residents pass through the plaza, known as the unofficial town hall of Brooklyn, whether on their way to visit Restoration’s Center for Personal Financial Health, view a play at the BHT, or attend a community event hosted in the amphitheater.
At its inception, Restoration Plaza was a landmark example of community development and adaptive reuse. Now, more than 50 years later, Restoration is once again advancing a bold new vision: reimaging the plaza as the Restoration Innovation Campus. The new campus will be a dramatically expanded, modern, multipurpose site that enables Restoration to meet the needs of the community today. It will include new public space, an expanded cultural center, and two commercial buildings for partners committed to disrupting the racial wealth gap.
The plaza stands as a testament to the history and vibrancy of Central Brooklyn. This tour will showcase Restoration’s impact on the community, serving as a landlord, developer, service provider, cultural center, and community anchor for over five decades. It will also point to how the existing space is set to be reinvented for a new era.
The New Long Island City
Long Island City (LIC) is New York City’s fastest growing neighborhood. The city is engaged in multiple efforts to support the neighborhood’s long-term transformation into a mixed-use district. The Hunter’s Point South project is transforming the Long Island City waterfront with improved infrastructure, an 11-acre waterfront park, and 5,000 total residential units, including 3,000 affordable housing units. In 2018, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) completed the waterfront park, featuring a green stormwater infrastructure, bicycle and pedestrian pathways, adult fitness equipment, a playground, and an art installation. In fall 2023, the city kicked off the One LIC neighborhood planning study, focusing on LIC’s northern Waterfront and the industrial business zone (IBZ) located between the Waterfront and Court Square. This project seeks to leverage city-owned sites for affordable housing, promote equitable economic development, add waterfront open space, and improve circulation around the neighborhood.
This tour will begin at Hunter’s Point South Park, move north along the LIC waterfront to Anable Basin, and conclude at the IBZ.
Real Estate as Culture: A Tour of Harlem
Start by riding through Central Park, exiting at 110th Street/Central Park North. Ride past the Lincoln Correctional Facility site (RFP in process) up Frederick Douglas Boulevard through an area of high gentrification, including the Harlem Tavern. Go east past famous jazz club Minton’s up to 125th Street. Ride down Harlem’s “Main Street,” 125th Street, to see the iconic Apollo Theater and new developments at the Victory Theater. See the influx of national retailers along 125th and hear about the evolution of the area from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. Continue north to Strivers’ Row and the Abyssinian Baptist Church. End the ride at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and a visit to its gift shop.
Reducing Real Estate’s Carbon Footprint and the Path to Net Zero: The Costs of Meeting the Moment and the Consequences of Neglect
Hudson Square: Ushering in the Future of Sustainable and Contextual Design
Join us for a special tour of one of New York City’s most dynamic neighborhoods, Hudson Square. The district, at the nexus of NYC’s premier retail and residential neighborhoods, is rich in history but is also leading the way in terms of sustainable design and thoughtful and contextual architecture that is appealing to some of the world’s largest and most innovative office tenants, including Google, Horizon Media, Publicis Groupe and Squarespace. Trinity Church Wall Street, steward of the neighborhood since the early 1700s, helped usher in a residential rezoning that has allowed the neighborhood to flourish, and, in partnership with Norges Bank and Hines, Trinity Church has repositioned their more than 6 million-square-foot portfolio of purpose-built printing house buildings to cater to modern office needs in a Class A manner.
The group will tour a cornerstone of the Hudson Square portfolio, 555 Greenwich + 345 Hudson. 555 Greenwich is a 270,000-square-foot ground-up development designed by COOKFOX Architects that is the completion of the adjacent property, 345 Hudson (built in 1931), to create a 1.2 million-square-foot interconnected campus. 555 Greenwich represents the next generation of high-performing buildings and will exceed NYC’s 2030 climate targets for office buildings by over 45 percent and align with New York State 2050 carbon-neutral targets. 345 Hudson is one of three commercial buildings selected to participate in the Empire Building Challenge’s low-carbon public/private design partnership.
We will follow with a tour of 550 Washington, the 1.3 million-square-foot home to Google's headquarters designed by COOKFOX, and end at historic Pier 57. Originally constructed in 1952, the newly restored mixed-use pier features Little Island, an award-winning public park and urban oasis, a waterfront food market, ample indoor/outdoor community spaces, and an interactive gallery and classroom focused on wildlife and waterways.
Cornell Tech: NYC’s Thriving Innovation Hub
In 2011, Cornell Tech emerged as the winner of a global contest—Mayor Bloomberg’s Applied Sciences NYC Initiative—that was designed to dramatically expand the city’s capacity in the applied sciences sector to maintain the city’s global competitiveness and create jobs. The winning bid by Cornell Tech, a partnership between Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, proposed the development of a 2-million-square-foot innovative science campus on Roosevelt Island, which will serve more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff upon its completion. By 2017, the $1 billion, 850,000-square-foot first phase opened, boasting a net-zero academic building, a striking co-location office building, a 40,000-square-foot conference center, a 224-room hotel and a residential tower with 350 apartments in the largest Passive House tower in the world at the time of its opening. The campus embodies New York’s commitment to technology’s growing impact in New York City. Discover Cornell Tech: NYC’s thriving innovation hub!