Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

For Chris Miller, it's all about community capital. Chris is chair and one of the founding board members of the National Coalition for Community Capital - or NC3.   They are leading the charge to strengthen local economies by empowering ordinary citizens through community investment and ownership. Chris has been working on community, economic, and entrepreneur development in Michigan for nearly 20...

Early in her career, very early, Katie McCamant visited Copenhagen.   She was an architecture student studying abroad.   In Copenhagen she learned of a new housing model called co-housing -- a small intentional community of private homes clustered around a shared space. Common space usually includes a large kitchen, dining area and other common facilities, but will vary depending on each communiti...

As mayor of Salt Lake County a decade ago, Ben McAdams was frustrated that there wasn't $500,000 in a $1.3 billion annual budget for a promising early childhood education program. Not one to permit defeat, he decided to map the value of the city's underutilized real estate.   And that   yielded an impressive number: All of a sudden the city had $45 billion on its balance sheet. "I found out there...

This is a long one.   But I couldn't help myself.   You'll soon see why. Enrique Penalosa is an exuberant lover of cities.   Equitable cities. He served as Mayor of Bogota, Colombia not once, but twice, profoundly transforming his city from one with no self-esteem into an international model. As Mayor, Enrique launched TransMilenio, a bus mass transit system, which today moves 2.4 million passenge...

Lyneir Richardson is building Black wealth through community-owned shopping centers. He has an audacious plan to buy 16 community shopping centers and invite 1,000 small investors to co-own them with his company, Chicago TREND.   He's made a sizable dent in this goal with over 340 investors, and five shopping centers in his portfolio. This will be #6. To accomplish this, Lyneir and his team have d...

Kirk Sykes is Managing Director of Accordia Partners, a Boston-based real estate investment and development company. Accordia develops large public-private real estate projects. Kirk was previously the head of Urban Strategy America Fund, perhaps one of the first urban real estate equity funds focused on the triple bottom line. And that brings us to this podcast.   Kirk has had a highly successful...

In real estate development, envisioning how future societies will live can often feel like masterminding a high-tech work of science fiction.   Just outside of Houston, a new development of the future is emerging. But instead of flying cars and sky-scraping utopias, this version of Tomorrowland has its roots firmly and sustainably planted in days gone by. Indigo, a 235-acre community, is being dev...

Rich Rogers is an urban planner and attorney in Buffalo, New York. In his practice he focuses on tax credit financing and on creative problem-solving to help public and private sector projects work from concept into financing and implementation.   Rich is also a real estate developer, with a project in lease-up on Buffalo's main street.   There he's put his knowledge to good use, converting a 30,0...

Adriana Abizadeh is the executive director of the Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT) in Philadelphia. You might wonder what that is and why it exists. Kensington was once known as the Workshop of the World with booming manufacturing and a well-employed neighborhood. Then, Kensington Avenue was a bustling local business corridor. Now there is a lack of economic investment and everything that comes wit...

As we embark on a new year, we're all thinking about fixing things.   I bumped this podcast up on my list, because Tracy Hadden Loh has a much bigger and more inspiring fix list than most of us do. Tracy is bi-racial and has experienced inequity first hand.   Even as a young child she knew something was wrong.   Her career has been a purposeful exploration of how to fix things. As a Fellow with th...

After a successful career in architecture and design in New York City, Mark Winkelman purchased a 300,000  s.f. historic Pajama factory. Once the largest pajama factory in the country, the buildings sat vacant in a small town in central Pennsylvania with a population of just 114,000   They set about filling it, one corner at a time, with a vision for an affordable and thriving creative hub. 16 yea...

It's been 4 years since I first interviewed Lorenzo Perez and I love his work every bit as much as I did then. Lorenzo advocates for LOCAL community, culture and commerce in his real estate projects, and for crafting, artistic, one-of-a-kind environments and experiences.   He and his company, Venue, put that passion to work throughout the Metro Phoenix market. This approach helped them to weather...

Atif Qadir is a serial entrepreneur, but that's not where he started. Trained as an architect and urban planner, Atif decided pretty early on that he wanted to work his way up the ladder, from servicing developers as an architect or builder, to being one!    So he started developing his own small properties, and as his frustrations with finding project financing grew, so did his entrepreneurial id...

This is my second podcast interview with Brian Murray.   But time has passed, and his business (and expertise) have grown.   Brian came to real estate as a non-real estate guy. Always interested in impact, he wanted to find a way to address poverty and real estate presented a tangible path.   And so he launched SHIFT Capital, an impact urban real estate group focused on mission-oriented real estat...

From Wall Street to mortgage banking to real estate developer. Joel Miller has focused his career with clarity and purpose. And now he's taking it one step further by raising money for his next real estate project, through crowdfunding.     Joel wants to bring others up behind him.   He wants to give others the opportunities he's been given. And one small way to do that is to provide an opportunit...

Joyous disruption. This is Jonathan Dodson's goal with each and every real estate project he develops. Jonathan pivoted from an early career as a banker to real estate developer, aptly calling the firm he co-founded, Pivot Projects. He had developed an interest in urban neighborhoods and redevelopment initiatives, and when given an opportunity to co-partner on a project, he grabbed it. Now he lead...

Lindsey Scannapieco is an urbanist and an artist in every sense of the word. While living and studying in the UK, Lindsey worked on projects such as activating an underutilized subterranean crossing alongside Westminster Council, supporting Tech Shop in their global expansion, and developing a community led design project that reconsiders traditional construction hoardings in South Kilburn. All of...

Liz Dunn is a real estate artist. After spending the early years of her career as a software developer at Microsoft, Liz made a hard pivot and launched her own Seattle company in a completely different field: real estate.     The last 20+ years have been filled with people and buildings for Liz. Of her 35 or so retail tenants, all are local and over half are minorities or women.   Fascinating name...

Franchell Abdalla is a minority in every sense of the word. She is black, a woman and a real estate developer. But that's not stopping her. Not for one little moment. Franchell only recently launched her development company, Be Good Development, and yet she has her sights set on incredibly complex and rich real estate projects.   She assembled an astounding team to win a significant Request for Pr...

Charles Marohn is a recovering engineer. He used to build roads. Charles followed all the rules he learned while studying to become an engineer. But in 2008, well into his engineering career, he became disenchanted with the notion that more roads lead to prosperity. So, Charles started blogging his thoughts. He advocated for a new approach to land use and warned about the dangers of suburban spraw...

Samuel Alemayehu was born in Ethiopia and educated in the US. He is a serial entrepreneur and investor focused on deploying technology as an equalizing force. "Let's change the world to technology and products that empower the individual and sustain the village" says Sam. Through his work with Cambridge Industries, Sam is revolutionizing the way we think about sustainable energy and infrastructure...

Ten years ago, Jeff Speck wrote a book called  Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time . Since it was published, in 2012, the book has become one of the most popular titles in urban planning. His blunt assessment of the state of the planning profession, along with 10 steps for improving street design, have influenced efforts to improve safety and livability across U.S. cit...

Is the city dead?  Christopher Leinberger doesn't think so. He recently co-authored a report called Foot Traffic Ahead 2023 that loudly proclaims, the city is not dead.  Post pandemic, price premiums and increased market share dominate walkable urban places. These findings may cement walkable places as the wave of the future. They point to us moving toward a more connected, environmentally-sustain...

People. Planet. Profit … and Place. This is the return that Juli Kaufmann believes all real estate should achieve. Less than that is simply not good enough for Juli. Juli  founded her company, Fix Development, with this explicit goal in mind.  She applies her philosophy to each and every project in her portfolio, prioritizing economic stability, environmental stewardship, social equity, and cultur...

In 2019, Dafna Kaplan embarked upon a journey to uncover the obstacles preventing true construction innovation from widespread adoption. Extensive research and development led her to launch Cassette, and garnered her the 2020 Presidential Award from the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for her work addressing the housing crisis. In 2022, Cassette introduced a beaut...