so think about your favorite place in
the city what makes it special I’ve
spent my entire career on building those
sort of places and these places are not
perfect I don’t think we’re looking for
perfection I think we’re looking for
originality we want authenticity we want
it to be real like us and we want
romance and we’re social beings we want
to be connected we want to be a part of
something bigger and we want a place
where people come together much like
this except imagine it’s a whole
community that comes together it’s
possible it’s difficult and it’s worth
it
but who does this how does it work we
have three separate entities that makes
this work it’s really of course a
private enterprise it’s the neighborhood
and it’s the government now the private
enterprise which is the development team
and everything that goes with it is
pressure to make a profit it’s also
stress to reduce risk and quite often in
doing so it goes by past formulas that
were successful the mistake in that is
that in today’s environment it takes
about seven years from initiation to
completion of a large-scale development
that’s a lifetime in technology change
and market shifts consequently the
outcomes rarely are favorite places that
we want to go to and sometimes fail the
smart developments the ones that are
successful utilize creativity along with
the diligence and in addition to that
they work with all three groups you have
to work with the neighborhood and the
government all three entities have to
embrace the fact that the city is not a
museum it’s ever-evolving it’s
ever-changing and in fact the cities are
growing for the first time in our
history over half of the population
actually lives in cities and that trend
is going to continue projections are
that over the next 20 years
cities will grow by two billion
residents
so the we’re in the midst of an urban
Renaissance and at the same time
technology and e-commerce are disrupting
the very businesses that we’re building
for so you can see the tension of urban
development so how do we make that
happen well there’s lots of tools but
let me talk about a creative uses a
creative uses are kind of like one plus
one equals three their value add the sum
is greater than the parts for instance
if I build an office building there’s
probably going to be a lot of people
working there with young families they
would love to have those kids nearby so
next to it we build a daycare center and
next to the daycare center we build a
park because guess what those kids would
love to be in a park next to the park we
build a coffee shop because people who
go to the park want to socialize and and
drink coffee on top of the coffee shop
we build an apartment building because
everybody knows that apartment buildings
love to have coffee shops on the first
floor so then maybe the residents in the
apartment building actually work in the
office building I just gave you a
stiching of symbiotic relationships that
the whole is greater than the parts and
notice I haven’t even talked about
architecture architecture is important
it inspires us architecture also must
serve the inhabitants of the buildings
and the community around it and at our
core mission urban development isn’t
about building a bunch of new shining
buildings it’s about people it’s about
developing communities that come
together we do that the asset value
profit goes up and the quality of life
is improved for the region that is a
goal that we all can be passionate about
so from that end I want to talk about
the Southwest Waterfront because there’s
a lot of lessons learned in this
development and we have to first start
with history this was Lafont plan back
in 1791 I don’t think his plan had a red
square on it
I think we added that for emphasis
because that is actually where the
Southwest Waterfront is Lafont gave this
plan to George Washington for the new
federal city that would be later called
Chintan DC and so what’s exciting about
this is is that the Southwest Waterfront
was in the middle
it was the Commerce intersection for the
rest of the city and it thrived for over
a hundred years let’s fast forward now
to 1960 the shipping industry had gone
away and the waterfront had seen its
better days at that point in time the
federal government subjected the
southwest to urban renewal it was the
first and worst of its kind in the
country and complete neighborhoods were
decimated residents were removed and a
superhighway is put in the middle of it
I don’t know what urban planners were
thinking back then it was like people
weren’t gonna walk again we were all
just going to use a car to go everywhere
it kind of isolated Southwest and it’s
that fellow like this for half a century
until about 2006 when the city put forth
a request for proposals and this request
was breathtaking what they were looking
at it was a mile of shoreline 75 acres
of water and land within walking
distance of the National Mall this was
red meat for all the large developers on
the eastern seaboard including Chicago
so I put my little team together along
with many others and it was an arduous
campaign on and on for months and at the
end of the day I was the dog that caught
the car we then proceeded with what I
knew well which was working with the
community and the government at that
point we started working with a
leadership on ways we can improve things
and after five years over 800 community
meetings seven council votes to change
laws and four acts of Congress we came
up with a plan and this plan was
beautiful it actually got better and
which is not often the case we were very
careful not to go ahead and just take
brilliant ideas and dilute them down
through groupthink and arrive at an
outcome that wouldn’t have been worthy
we took certain issues that we could be
flexible on and certain issues we had to
stand to our principles and at the end
of the day I think everyone
is a line on the outcome which is very
exciting so let’s look at the scale this
is a 1946 depiction and I’ve just
overlaid the scale of phase one this is
phase one alone we call it the Big Bang
Theory we knew that if we only did one
building at a time we couldn’t change
the paradigm so we had to do it all at
least phase one at once a whole
neighborhood several hotels several
apartment buildings condos concert hall
several office buildings over 20
restaurants on and on you get the idea
so we did that we went forward to
executing our plan and that is that this
place is for everyone everyone can come
to this place and enjoy it this is not
just exclusive resort type thing this is
a whole community so we have housing we
have affordable housing we like to joke
we have unaffordable housing we have
market rate housing we have fine dining
we have casual dining we have something
for everybody here it’s a true community
and that’s what makes it strong and we
also go forward to maximize our
resources I look at everything that we
do on the urban format and look at every
other neighborhood it has a story to
tell it has a history there’s something
in the DNA actually on the waterfront is
quite simple it’s the water and don’t
screw it up the water is magic there’s
something with the water that makes us
happy I don’t know what it is it makes
us more friendly to if you’re on a boat
and you pass another boat what do you do
you wave you don’t do that in a car
I mean people are mean or on the land
they’re friendlier in the water I don’t
know why so we embrace it I don’t try to
question it embrace it so we have peers
that go out onto the water
we have cafes and terraces they look at
each other and they look out on the
water even on the land side I added
fountains
so we’d have water over there it was a
it was obvious I suppose and then we
look to also curate with purpose we’re
very careful what we bring in so we have
artisan retail this is retail you can’t
find in a shopping mall this makes it
special makes it authentic we also have
lots of food and music all three of
those groups are very social that’s what
we were looking for and we made two
blocks very small so it’d be walkable a
normal block is about 600 feet long
these are 270 feet long and so there’s a
whole city grid inside of this
waterfront and by the way the streets
are cobblestone it creates this sort of
village type environment and provides
this human scale that I think we all
long for and then we had make it organic
we don’t want this to look contrived and
the only way we could do that was to put
an architect on every building so each
building has its own expression even on
the outside on the landscape front they
have different architects we had I think
20 architects overall in phase one and
then build great spaces outdoors this is
actually out on a pier right here what
I’m actually most impressed about this
is these little kids are playing
Scrabble who are these parents these
kids are enjoying themselves spelling
words so anyway we have a variety for
everything unit you could this can be
date night this can be family day it’s
all good and then we have something with
all this technology what people are
really attracted to is a fire we’re
attracted to fire and water what is
really cool about this is it’s a real
wood-burning fire pit you can make
s’mores on what actually I find very
enjoyable enjoyable just watching these
forty five-year-old me
making s’mores on the pit it’s a real
great gathering a place and then we go
to other areas and we’ve added a twist
to it after the landscape architects
were completed with their concepts we
brought in an interior designer and said
to them I want you to pretend you’re in
a living room you’re an interior
designer
how can we take this to the next level
what detail can you put on here to make
people feel better to make them feel
more social and it was amazing the
detailing that I was created now a lot
of this is sort of subliminal and maybe
not that noticeable except when you look
out here we have lampshades on or posts
or lights outside like you’re inside a
living room these lampshades diffuse the
light and they put a really cool glow on
the people and on the streets and it
creates this urban theater with
everything around it that you see and
everybody participates in this theater
I’m going to leave you with this one
last image this just came over social
media three days ago I don’t know who
these girls are I’m going to imagine
they’re sisters it’s beautiful
when we first started when we opened it
up a couple of weeks ago we had 75,000
people come and visit the waterfront the
crowds have persisted ever since but you
know life is made up of moments that
sound like a Hallmark card I apologize
this is a special moment so if you look
at these two sisters I’m going to
believe that this is their favorite
place in the city at this moment and I
cannot think of a better image to
explain why it is that we do this in the
city and build these great places this
is why we do it thank you
[Applause]
the city what makes it special I’ve
spent my entire career on building those
sort of places and these places are not
perfect I don’t think we’re looking for
perfection I think we’re looking for
originality we want authenticity we want
it to be real like us and we want
romance and we’re social beings we want
to be connected we want to be a part of
something bigger and we want a place
where people come together much like
this except imagine it’s a whole
community that comes together it’s
possible it’s difficult and it’s worth
it
but who does this how does it work we
have three separate entities that makes
this work it’s really of course a
private enterprise it’s the neighborhood
and it’s the government now the private
enterprise which is the development team
and everything that goes with it is
pressure to make a profit it’s also
stress to reduce risk and quite often in
doing so it goes by past formulas that
were successful the mistake in that is
that in today’s environment it takes
about seven years from initiation to
completion of a large-scale development
that’s a lifetime in technology change
and market shifts consequently the
outcomes rarely are favorite places that
we want to go to and sometimes fail the
smart developments the ones that are
successful utilize creativity along with
the diligence and in addition to that
they work with all three groups you have
to work with the neighborhood and the
government all three entities have to
embrace the fact that the city is not a
museum it’s ever-evolving it’s
ever-changing and in fact the cities are
growing for the first time in our
history over half of the population
actually lives in cities and that trend
is going to continue projections are
that over the next 20 years
cities will grow by two billion
residents
so the we’re in the midst of an urban
Renaissance and at the same time
technology and e-commerce are disrupting
the very businesses that we’re building
for so you can see the tension of urban
development so how do we make that
happen well there’s lots of tools but
let me talk about a creative uses a
creative uses are kind of like one plus
one equals three their value add the sum
is greater than the parts for instance
if I build an office building there’s
probably going to be a lot of people
working there with young families they
would love to have those kids nearby so
next to it we build a daycare center and
next to the daycare center we build a
park because guess what those kids would
love to be in a park next to the park we
build a coffee shop because people who
go to the park want to socialize and and
drink coffee on top of the coffee shop
we build an apartment building because
everybody knows that apartment buildings
love to have coffee shops on the first
floor so then maybe the residents in the
apartment building actually work in the
office building I just gave you a
stiching of symbiotic relationships that
the whole is greater than the parts and
notice I haven’t even talked about
architecture architecture is important
it inspires us architecture also must
serve the inhabitants of the buildings
and the community around it and at our
core mission urban development isn’t
about building a bunch of new shining
buildings it’s about people it’s about
developing communities that come
together we do that the asset value
profit goes up and the quality of life
is improved for the region that is a
goal that we all can be passionate about
so from that end I want to talk about
the Southwest Waterfront because there’s
a lot of lessons learned in this
development and we have to first start
with history this was Lafont plan back
in 1791 I don’t think his plan had a red
square on it
I think we added that for emphasis
because that is actually where the
Southwest Waterfront is Lafont gave this
plan to George Washington for the new
federal city that would be later called
Chintan DC and so what’s exciting about
this is is that the Southwest Waterfront
was in the middle
it was the Commerce intersection for the
rest of the city and it thrived for over
a hundred years let’s fast forward now
to 1960 the shipping industry had gone
away and the waterfront had seen its
better days at that point in time the
federal government subjected the
southwest to urban renewal it was the
first and worst of its kind in the
country and complete neighborhoods were
decimated residents were removed and a
superhighway is put in the middle of it
I don’t know what urban planners were
thinking back then it was like people
weren’t gonna walk again we were all
just going to use a car to go everywhere
it kind of isolated Southwest and it’s
that fellow like this for half a century
until about 2006 when the city put forth
a request for proposals and this request
was breathtaking what they were looking
at it was a mile of shoreline 75 acres
of water and land within walking
distance of the National Mall this was
red meat for all the large developers on
the eastern seaboard including Chicago
so I put my little team together along
with many others and it was an arduous
campaign on and on for months and at the
end of the day I was the dog that caught
the car we then proceeded with what I
knew well which was working with the
community and the government at that
point we started working with a
leadership on ways we can improve things
and after five years over 800 community
meetings seven council votes to change
laws and four acts of Congress we came
up with a plan and this plan was
beautiful it actually got better and
which is not often the case we were very
careful not to go ahead and just take
brilliant ideas and dilute them down
through groupthink and arrive at an
outcome that wouldn’t have been worthy
we took certain issues that we could be
flexible on and certain issues we had to
stand to our principles and at the end
of the day I think everyone
is a line on the outcome which is very
exciting so let’s look at the scale this
is a 1946 depiction and I’ve just
overlaid the scale of phase one this is
phase one alone we call it the Big Bang
Theory we knew that if we only did one
building at a time we couldn’t change
the paradigm so we had to do it all at
least phase one at once a whole
neighborhood several hotels several
apartment buildings condos concert hall
several office buildings over 20
restaurants on and on you get the idea
so we did that we went forward to
executing our plan and that is that this
place is for everyone everyone can come
to this place and enjoy it this is not
just exclusive resort type thing this is
a whole community so we have housing we
have affordable housing we like to joke
we have unaffordable housing we have
market rate housing we have fine dining
we have casual dining we have something
for everybody here it’s a true community
and that’s what makes it strong and we
also go forward to maximize our
resources I look at everything that we
do on the urban format and look at every
other neighborhood it has a story to
tell it has a history there’s something
in the DNA actually on the waterfront is
quite simple it’s the water and don’t
screw it up the water is magic there’s
something with the water that makes us
happy I don’t know what it is it makes
us more friendly to if you’re on a boat
and you pass another boat what do you do
you wave you don’t do that in a car
I mean people are mean or on the land
they’re friendlier in the water I don’t
know why so we embrace it I don’t try to
question it embrace it so we have peers
that go out onto the water
we have cafes and terraces they look at
each other and they look out on the
water even on the land side I added
fountains
so we’d have water over there it was a
it was obvious I suppose and then we
look to also curate with purpose we’re
very careful what we bring in so we have
artisan retail this is retail you can’t
find in a shopping mall this makes it
special makes it authentic we also have
lots of food and music all three of
those groups are very social that’s what
we were looking for and we made two
blocks very small so it’d be walkable a
normal block is about 600 feet long
these are 270 feet long and so there’s a
whole city grid inside of this
waterfront and by the way the streets
are cobblestone it creates this sort of
village type environment and provides
this human scale that I think we all
long for and then we had make it organic
we don’t want this to look contrived and
the only way we could do that was to put
an architect on every building so each
building has its own expression even on
the outside on the landscape front they
have different architects we had I think
20 architects overall in phase one and
then build great spaces outdoors this is
actually out on a pier right here what
I’m actually most impressed about this
is these little kids are playing
Scrabble who are these parents these
kids are enjoying themselves spelling
words so anyway we have a variety for
everything unit you could this can be
date night this can be family day it’s
all good and then we have something with
all this technology what people are
really attracted to is a fire we’re
attracted to fire and water what is
really cool about this is it’s a real
wood-burning fire pit you can make
s’mores on what actually I find very
enjoyable enjoyable just watching these
forty five-year-old me
making s’mores on the pit it’s a real
great gathering a place and then we go
to other areas and we’ve added a twist
to it after the landscape architects
were completed with their concepts we
brought in an interior designer and said
to them I want you to pretend you’re in
a living room you’re an interior
designer
how can we take this to the next level
what detail can you put on here to make
people feel better to make them feel
more social and it was amazing the
detailing that I was created now a lot
of this is sort of subliminal and maybe
not that noticeable except when you look
out here we have lampshades on or posts
or lights outside like you’re inside a
living room these lampshades diffuse the
light and they put a really cool glow on
the people and on the streets and it
creates this urban theater with
everything around it that you see and
everybody participates in this theater
I’m going to leave you with this one
last image this just came over social
media three days ago I don’t know who
these girls are I’m going to imagine
they’re sisters it’s beautiful
when we first started when we opened it
up a couple of weeks ago we had 75,000
people come and visit the waterfront the
crowds have persisted ever since but you
know life is made up of moments that
sound like a Hallmark card I apologize
this is a special moment so if you look
at these two sisters I’m going to
believe that this is their favorite
place in the city at this moment and I
cannot think of a better image to
explain why it is that we do this in the
city and build these great places this
is why we do it thank you
[Applause]
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