New York, NY (December 10, 2019) – HR&A Advisors, Inc. (HR&A), a leading, national consulting firm providing services in real estate, economic development, and public policy, announced that current firm President Eric Rothman will become Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2020. John Alschuler, who founded the firm and has served as Chairman, will remain an active Partner and Chair of HR&A’s Board of Directors. HR&A’s Vice Chairman Candace Damon will remain an active Partner and lead the HR&A Board’s oversight of business strategy. The announcement accompanies broader strategic management changes to strengthen the firm’s client focus and its growing impact on the vitality of urban communities nation-wide and globally.

“We are thrilled that Eric will serve as CEO of HR&A as a new generation of firm leaders work on the most pressing issues facing American cities over the following decades, including climate change, inclusive growth, and the impact of technology on our cities,” said John Alschuler, CEO and Founder of HR&A. “Since joining the team over twenty years ago, Eric has played a key role in making HR&A a world-renowned firm known for tackling urban challenges across the country. I look forward to him building on HR&A’s mission to improve economic opportunity, quality of life, and the built environment for people in urban communities.”

“I am honored and excited to serve as CEO and lead HR&A’s passionate team of urban development and policy experts, building upon John’s work that advises countless cities, communities and industries about all facets of urban American life,” said Eric Rothman, President of HR&A. “I look forward to expanding HR&A’s impact on quality of life in urban communities through our groundbreaking work on social inclusion policy, promotion of urban tech communities and innovation places, and strategies for climate change adaptation.”

Over the past 40 years, HR&A has grown to a team of over 120 planners, analysts, policymakers, organizers, advocates, economists, lawyers, architects, and urbanists with offices in New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, Raleigh, and Washington, D.C. HR&A’s growth into a national, multi-disciplinary consulting firm has been driven by the evolving saga of American cities beginning in the 1970s. The firm has been a driving force in the rebuilding and revitalization of urban cores, increasing economic value and kickstarting development. As catalytic problem solvers working at the nexus of city planning, government policy, and financial feasibility, HR&A provides leading public, private, and not for profit clients implementable plans to create inclusive cities, address economic and racial disparities, and tackle affordability challenges and displacement. HR&A is also at the forefront of advising cities and governments about how to best address the challenges of technology and climate change cities are currently facing.

Among a larger body of advisory work, HR&A:

• • Supported the renaissance of Lower Manhattan below Chambers Street into a thriving residential destination
  • Turned aging infrastructure into signature parks like Brooklyn Bridge Park and the High Line
  • Helped transform Washington, D.C.’s Anacostia Waterfront to bring the Nationals Stadium and a mixed-use district
  • Crafted transit funding and transit-oriented development implementation strategies to advance major transit projects on the West Coast, including for Los Angeles Metro and Santa Clara VTA
  • Is advising the California State University system on a forward-looking growth framework that builds the skills of California’s workforce
  • Is working with Rice University to create a Houston Innovation and Tech District
  • Is developing climate adaptation plans and implementation strategies for more than 20 US cities
  • Is advising cities and property owners on the creation of inclusive economic development strategies and vibrant innovation districts in cities including Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Atlanta, Houston, San Jose, St. Louis, and Washington

Eric joined HR&A 22 years ago and brings decades of experience in providing economic development and public-private real estate development consulting, servicing governmental entities, and advising on transportation and public finance projects across North America and the United Kingdom. Eric has led the firm’s efforts on the groundbreaking PlaNYC 2030 sustainability strategy for New York, supported major redevelopment efforts for the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; Union Depot in Saint Paul, Minnesota; and the district adjacent to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.

Prior to joining HR&A, Eric served as Director of Business Planning for Transport for London. In 2008, Eric was recognized by Real Estate New Jersey as one of their Forty Under 40 rising stars. Eric is a nationally recognized expert in transit-oriented development and serves as Board Chair for the Design Trust for Public Space, Vice Chair of the Urban Land Institute’s national Public-Private Partnership Council, and Board Treasurer for KaBOOM!

Media Contact
For questions or inquiries, contact hra@berlinrosen.com or (646) 452-5637

Read Crain’s New York’s coverage of the leadership transition: Urban planner behind the High Line, Brooklyn Bridge Park names his successor

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) announced plans to break ground on its long awaited millennial campus by 2020. The first two buildings to be added to the campus will be a new visual and performing arts center and a research building for UNCG’s health and human sciences faculty. Construction is scheduled to start in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
 
The full millennial campus extension will create a 73-acre mixed-use innovation district that will serve the university’s growing student body and the surrounding community. It will also allow UNCG to expand its tech programs, including a new master’s degree program in informatics and analytics, as well as attract new economic opportunities from private sector partnerships.
 
This announcement come three years after the institution was granted permission in 2017 to build a “millennial campus”. The North Carolina-specific designation allows for public financing of university-related research parks in the state’s public institutions as well as private-sector partnerships on university-owned land.
 
Since 2018, HR&A Partner Bob Geolas and the University and Innovation District team has worked with UNCG to create a roadmap that developed programming, visioning, and governance strategies to unify various properties along the university and city edge and to support economic growth in Greensboro and the surrounding region. These recommendations directly resulted in the approved plan that is now underway.
 
Read the Greensboro article: UNCG’s first two millennial campus projects will be built along Gate City Boulevard
Check out HR&A’s additional university work in North Carolina: Research Triangle Park

In May 2019, the finance and banking industry publication American Banker reported on growing support for a public bank in New York City. With backing from affordable housing advocates, workers’ rights groups, environmental activists, and credit unions, the ambitious endeavor spearheaded by Public Bank NYC makes the case that New York needs a municipally operated bank as an alternative to financial services contracts with multinational banks whose values and investments do not always align with community interests or needs.
 
The journal reached out to HR&A Partner Andrea Batista Schlesinger for comment as the co-author of the 2018 Seattle Public Bank Feasibility Study, which considered the viability of what could’ve been the nation’s first city-owned public bank alternative. While the study found that a public bank in Seattle would—at best—require a long-term process with numerous regulatory reviews and restrictive limitations on capital capacities, Batista Schlesinger remains optimistic about creating a new kind of financial institution directly accountable to local values. “There is no doubt that there is more interest in public banks today than I would say even six months ago,” she said. “The idea of local control appeals more and more in this political climate.”
 
One recent victory for the movement that may not have been imaginable even six months ago is the passage of California bill AB857. This bill will allow city and county governments to legally create public banks, making California only one of two states to preemptively sanction these institutions. As California, New York, and a growing number of localities nationwide demonstrate an eagerness to explore and eventually implement public banks, there is a growing need to understand the intricacies of how public banks can deliver on their many promises.
 
Read more about the public banks movement in American Banker: In New York, growing support for a public bank
Check out HR&A’s 2018 Seattle Public Banking Feasibility Study

On August 28, 2019, the Federal Transit Authority (FTA) signaled strong support for the San Jose, California-based Santa Clara Valley Transport Authority’s $5.6 billion Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) extension by agreeing to provide $125m in early funding.
 
The Santa Clara Valley Transport Authority, more commonly known as the VTA, is the first in the country to be selected into FTA’s new Expedited Project Delivery program, which aims to accelerate the approval process for large-scale infrastructure projects, like the construction of the BART Silicon Valley four-station extension into downtown San Jose. Building on the existing heavy rail system in a highly-congested part of the Bay Area’s Silicon Valley, this project has the potential to catalyze economic development around the four new stations in Santa Clara County and stimulate the Bay Area economy.
 
The FTA is highly-supportive of the project in part because of its ‘shovel readiness’ and its ability to identify non-Federal funds. HR&A Advisors has been working over the past year to support VTA as it identifies alternative sources of project funding through a strategy to develop its real estate assets and foster broader economic development along the extension.
 
Read The Mercury News reporting here: Federal government readies to give BART’s San Jose extension first installment of funds
Check out HR&A’s other Bay Area TOD work with Transbay Joint Powers Authority
Learn more about HR&A’s Transit-Oriented Development Practice

In 2016, Lina Hidalgo was one of the hundreds of women energized to run for office after the presidential election. The political newcomer, then a graduate student, moved back to Houston to challenge the 11-year incumbent moderate Republican Ed Emmett. Hidalgo, a Colombian-born immigrant, campaigned on a platform of public safety, criminal justice reform, and making county government more accessible to the more than 4 million constituents who call the nation’s third-largest county home. And she won.
 
Fast forward through her first 100 days and the County’s first female County Judge has already completed #TalkingTransition, a landmark community engagement strategy to ensure all residents understand how county government works. The initiative, managed by HR&A Advisors, reached over 11,000 County residents in five languages through a survey, a public information and education campaign, and a series of town halls and panel discussions. The survey, which focused on populations with historically low levels of civic engagement, revealed widespread concerns about natural disasters, housing, and public transportation.
 
“If there’s an issue facing our residents, we’ll go over and around a wall to address it. I won’t say it’s not my problem. I’ll figure out what we can do to help it.” Hidalgo recently told The Texas Observer. Unlike her predecessor, the 28-year old Judge-elect has also addressed county flood-control issues in the wake of climate change and suggested cutting funding to detention centers holding immigrant children.
 
Check out the Texas Observer profile to learn more about the Hidalgo’s progressive policies, how she will oversee the County’s $4.8 billion budget, and how she will face the challenges ahead.
 
Read the Texas Observer’s profile of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo
Read how HR&A supported the Historic Transition of Judge-Elect Hidalgo

MAY 1, 2019 — The Up for Growth National Coalition debuted its interactive online Housing Policy and Affordability Calculator at the Up for Growth Action Policy Summit and Legislative Advocacy Conference, a multi-day housing policy-focused forum in Washington, D.C. The first iteration of the calculator was piloted in Seattle, WA and allows users to explore how different policy inputs impact housing supply and rent affordability citywide.
 
Alongside Mike Kingsella (Executive Director of Up for Growth), Phillip Kash (HR&A Partner and leader of the firm’s Affordable Housing practice) explained how HR&A designed the underlying financial and economic models with significant input from local developers, policymakers, and academic economists. The Housing Calculator dynamically computes foreseeable tradeoffs between housing affordability and other public goals based on adjustments to 13 Seattle-specific policy choices. These policy choices are grouped by: Affordable Housing, Environmental Impact, Community Impact and Design, and Public Revenues. By toggling different policy levers, users generate a report that estimates changes for a typical new one-bedroom apartment on a project level (change in rent and total units, development costs, project feasibility) and citywide level (changes in long-term housing production, rent levels, cost burdening, and impact on the economy).
 
Elected officials, public policy organizations, and academic thought leaders have praised the Housing Policy and Affordability Calculator as an innovative device that drives policy conversations. “This Housing Policy and Affordability Calculator serves two critical purposes for policy makers,” said Congressman Denny Heck (D-Washington). “It makes stark that housing—not health care or education— is the biggest pressures in typical family budgets. And it lets us see how we can relieve this pressure through better policy that allows more construction. I look forward to seeing the Calculator used in policy discussions in Washington, D.C. and state capitols around the country to enable us to start building the millions of homes we desperately need.”
 
HR&A continues to support Up for Growth as the organization expands this online tool to other major cities across the U.S. starting with Los Angeles, and followed by other cities that have expressed interest, such as Boston, New York, Chicago, and Portland.
 
Explore the Up for Growth National Coalition Housing Policy and Affordability Calculator
Read the white paper detailing the calculator’s methodology, assumptions, and key findings

MAY 13, 2019 — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the $30 million 2018 Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) Implementation Grant to the coastal City of Norfolk, VA, home to the Norfolk U.S. Naval Base, and the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the largest redevelopment and housing authority in Virginia. HR&A Advisors advised the City throughout the grant application.
 
The grant will allow the City to invest in climate resiliency and economic development in the St. Paul’s Area, which contains three public housing communities in its 200+ acres, including Tidewater Gardens, one of Norfolk’s most flood-prone areas. “This will further our vision to transform Tidewater Gardens into a mixed-income, mixed-use, resilient neighborhood that will provide affordable, quality housing for all income levels,” said Mayor Kenneth Cooper Alexander in the press release.
 
The grant will provide $21 million for housing redevelopment, $4.5 million for neighborhood amenities, $4.5 million in supportive services, and housing choice vouchers for every household residing in the 600-unit Tidewater Gardens housing complex. In addition to the HUD grant, Norfolk and its partners have made investments and commitments of over $158.5 million in the St. Paul’s Area. These investments will fund necessary flood protection infrastructure, such as a system of parks, open space, and streets that manage stormwater and flooding, as well as recreational, cultural, housing, employment, health and wellness, and education resources for the community.
 
Learn more about HR&A’s Urban Resilience practice.
Learn more about HR&A’s Economic Development Strategy practice.