ULI Reflections

The Urban Land Institute is heading into its 90th year, and its work has never been more vital. At their Fall Meeting in Miami last week, that message wasn’t spoken, but it was certainly felt as participants discussed the role of adaptive reuse in the future of cities, the macroeconomic environment, and the rising role of sustainability and resilience in urban development. 

This was my first ULI event and my first national CRE event since joining PLG, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In particular, I found it fascinating to see how different groups of people evaluate and attack these massive challenges.  From Monday’s Lewis Center Sustainability Forum to Wednesday’s closing session, here are three things I thought about while detouring around the flooded sections of Collins Ave. 

Extreme weather events have been building in both frequency and intensity in recent years, leading to catastrophic damage and slow recovery in the wake of events like the firestorms in California, the flooding in the Texas hill country, and Hurricanes Ian, Maria, and Harvey.  

Resilience advocates have encouraged the use of improved building materials and methods for years, making slow but steady progress in most places. They may have finally found an unexpected ally in their work: the insurance industry. Multiple panels at ULI Fall Meeting discussed situations where including disaster-mitigation features in a building decreased the cost to insure it substantially or made the difference between getting insurance at all or being declared uninsurable.  

As the gap between traditional building costs and resilient building costs shrinks and the gap in insurance costs between the two expands, it’s easy to see why so many developers aren’t waiting any longer to incorporate more future-proof practices into their projects.