Global real estate investors meet in Miami this week
MIAMI – Oct. 27, 2008 – The glitterati of global real estate are descending on Miami this week, amid a worldwide credit crisis sparked by reckless lending in the U.S. property market.
More than 5,000 professionals from around the world – Tokyo developers, German bankers, San Francisco architects, Saudi Arabian property owners, among them – are attending the fall meeting of The Urban Land Institute.
The four-day conclave puts industry leaders and public policymakers together to discuss everything from the art of transit-oriented development to navigating the ongoing financial turmoil.
This year the group is exploring what cities should look like in 2050.
It’s the first time Washington, D.C.-based ULI, a nonprofit research and educational group with offices around the world, has held its annual gathering in Miami. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former Mexico president Vicente Fox are keynote speakers.
ULI president Richard Rosan sat down with The Miami Herald recently to talk about the conference and some of the challenges the real estate industry now faces.
Q. What needs to be done to resolve the current financial crisis?
A. It’s a big ditch. The way out is we need a huge amount of government intervention because there has been a complete loss of confidence in the ability to trade money and finance things. I was in New York with finance guys recently and they are just sitting there and nothing is happening.
No one had any idea how global the money world had become. Trillions of dollars were circling around the world. It wasn’t very long ago, 12 or 14 months ago, when people said the U.S. will go into a recession, and everyone said we’re delinked. Asia is separate and they will survive. We’ve delinked Europe. Baloney, everything is tied together.
It looks like we are on the right track now. But the answer is continued government intervention to do it, and stimulus.
Q. What do you make of the South Florida real estate market?
A. You have something that is not pervasive around country; you have a huge amount of empty condominiums because of overbuilding or whatever it is. The silver lining in Miami is that it’s here; you have them built. Once you have them built, they’re available and as the world changes, it will become an asset rather than a liability. It doesn’t mean the guys who own them right now are going to be doing too well.
I think your downtown development is brilliant here. I think the policies in Miami have been terrific – making it a dense urban environment. Longer term it has got to be a positive thing.
Q. Does the ULI embrace the idea of creating densely built urban centers, and has it taken a position on the sprawl we have seen in so many U.S. metropolitan areas?
A. We believe that the whole issue of climate change and energy has brought everyone together to make us realize we can’t continue to let this country sprawl out forever and ever.
We can’t have people driving an hour to work, using up all this fuel and time. We have long, for many years, been in favor of transit-oriented development and denser building.
That doesn’t mean to say you won’t have to build a lot of new buildings in places that maybe aren’t in downtown. Because there are not enough places in downtowns around country to house the population that is going to hit us. But it should be close to downtown and there should be ways to get there.
The whole urban fabric needs to be thought of in a different way, in that you have centers of people being together and they are linked with other centers. It’s sort of like a quilt.
Q. You are doing an exhibit called The City in 2050 at the conference. What should cities of the future look like?
A. We thought of making a blueprint, but we decided it was premature to make such a blanket statement. So this exhibit City 2050 is saying what are the options. It is a program that will continue and we’re going to then explore how different options would look.
But I think some principles are pretty clear. You want options for transit in addition to cars. You want to have options for housing that is different from the suburban single-family house on a small lot. You need to do that because our population has changed, our demographics have changed, and we need to create a richer environment. We think mixed-use development is much better.
How you do that is more specific and there are different ways of doing it. For instance, you can do very dense low-rise development or do very dense high-rise development.
Q. What are the cities today that illustrate the model of better practices?
A. A lot of cities are trying to do the right thing. Miami is trying to do the right thing. Mayor Diaz is doing the right thing. Mayor Diaz’s whole program, with the zoning changes, is the right direction. I think Miami 21 is the right direction.
The problem it has: It is just the city of Miami. Unless we think regionally you are in trouble. You have to go beyond the city limits. I see some real horrors where counties are anxious to get dollars and allow all sorts of things to happen. You have to pay the piper eventually. I think states should take a bigger role in how urban areas are developed.
More than 5,000 professionals from around the world – Tokyo developers, German bankers, San Francisco architects, Saudi Arabian property owners, among them – are attending the fall meeting of The Urban Land Institute.
The four-day conclave puts industry leaders and public policymakers together to discuss everything from the art of transit-oriented development to navigating the ongoing financial turmoil.
This year the group is exploring what cities should look like in 2050.
It’s the first time Washington, D.C.-based ULI, a nonprofit research and educational group with offices around the world, has held its annual gathering in Miami. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former Mexico president Vicente Fox are keynote speakers.
ULI president Richard Rosan sat down with The Miami Herald recently to talk about the conference and some of the challenges the real estate industry now faces.
Q. What needs to be done to resolve the current financial crisis?
A. It’s a big ditch. The way out is we need a huge amount of government intervention because there has been a complete loss of confidence in the ability to trade money and finance things. I was in New York with finance guys recently and they are just sitting there and nothing is happening.
No one had any idea how global the money world had become. Trillions of dollars were circling around the world. It wasn’t very long ago, 12 or 14 months ago, when people said the U.S. will go into a recession, and everyone said we’re delinked. Asia is separate and they will survive. We’ve delinked Europe. Baloney, everything is tied together.
It looks like we are on the right track now. But the answer is continued government intervention to do it, and stimulus.
Q. What do you make of the South Florida real estate market?
A. You have something that is not pervasive around country; you have a huge amount of empty condominiums because of overbuilding or whatever it is. The silver lining in Miami is that it’s here; you have them built. Once you have them built, they’re available and as the world changes, it will become an asset rather than a liability. It doesn’t mean the guys who own them right now are going to be doing too well.
I think your downtown development is brilliant here. I think the policies in Miami have been terrific – making it a dense urban environment. Longer term it has got to be a positive thing.
Q. Does the ULI embrace the idea of creating densely built urban centers, and has it taken a position on the sprawl we have seen in so many U.S. metropolitan areas?
A. We believe that the whole issue of climate change and energy has brought everyone together to make us realize we can’t continue to let this country sprawl out forever and ever.
We can’t have people driving an hour to work, using up all this fuel and time. We have long, for many years, been in favor of transit-oriented development and denser building.
That doesn’t mean to say you won’t have to build a lot of new buildings in places that maybe aren’t in downtown. Because there are not enough places in downtowns around country to house the population that is going to hit us. But it should be close to downtown and there should be ways to get there.
The whole urban fabric needs to be thought of in a different way, in that you have centers of people being together and they are linked with other centers. It’s sort of like a quilt.
Q. You are doing an exhibit called The City in 2050 at the conference. What should cities of the future look like?
A. We thought of making a blueprint, but we decided it was premature to make such a blanket statement. So this exhibit City 2050 is saying what are the options. It is a program that will continue and we’re going to then explore how different options would look.
But I think some principles are pretty clear. You want options for transit in addition to cars. You want to have options for housing that is different from the suburban single-family house on a small lot. You need to do that because our population has changed, our demographics have changed, and we need to create a richer environment. We think mixed-use development is much better.
How you do that is more specific and there are different ways of doing it. For instance, you can do very dense low-rise development or do very dense high-rise development.
Q. What are the cities today that illustrate the model of better practices?
A. A lot of cities are trying to do the right thing. Miami is trying to do the right thing. Mayor Diaz is doing the right thing. Mayor Diaz’s whole program, with the zoning changes, is the right direction. I think Miami 21 is the right direction.
The problem it has: It is just the city of Miami. Unless we think regionally you are in trouble. You have to go beyond the city limits. I see some real horrors where counties are anxious to get dollars and allow all sorts of things to happen. You have to pay the piper eventually. I think states should take a bigger role in how urban areas are developed.
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