HR&A expands our leadership team in Washington DC with the addition of Phillip Bush as Principal.

 

 

 

 

 

“We gladly welcome Phillip Bush to HR&A. Phillip is a nationally-recognized leader in community development and resilience planning. His presence expands our capacity to meet the needs of our clients.”
– John Alschuler, Chairman

 

At HR&A, Phillip Bush will manage multiple projects within HR&A’s resilience and community revitalization practices. Currently, he is leading Climate Ready Boston, a comprehensive climate change adaptation plan for the city and its regional systems, on behalf of the Green Ribbon Commission and the City of Boston. He is also engaged in the Rockefeller Foundation’s capacity building initiative and HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition, where he works with 40 state and local governments on the predevelopment of resilience projects. As part of HR&A’s DC office, Phillip is co-lead for a multi-disciplinary team working for the DC Housing Authority to develop a mixed-use and mixed-income redevelopment plan for Greenleaf, a 15-acre 493 unit public housing site located in Southwest DC.

“I was very familiar with the high quality of HR&A’s work from collaborating with them over the years. I am excited at the opportunity to join the growing DC office and resilience practice, and to work with some of the most experienced and capable practitioners in our field”
– Phillip Bush, Principal

 

Phillip joins HR&A from Enterprise Community Partners where he began as a Freddie Mac Fellow developing proposals in response to federal and local opportunities for community revitalization and supported the establishment of the National Community Stabilization Trust. Phillip had the opportunity to make impactful changes on the frontier of affordable housing, resiliency and community development. He identified and assessed affordable housing transactions, developed policy recommendations, awarded grants to innovative communities, developed financial structures to leverage private capital with public funding, and led teams that provided assistance to local governments and non-profit agencies.

For over thirty years, HR&A has provided strategic advisory services for some of the most complex neighborhood, downtown, campus, and regional development projects across North America and abroad. With the addition of Phillip Bush to the HR&A team, we look forward to continuing to support the economic development and public policy goals of our clients. He can be reached at pbush@hraadvisors.com.

Caroline McCarthy, Managing Principal in HR&A’s Washington, DC office, was recently inducted into Lambda Alpha International, a global land economics society. Caroline has more than seven years’ experience with HR&A, supporting the growth of the New York and Washington, DC offices. Currently, she is leading HR&A’s work as part of a five-member consortium operating the National Resource Network (the Network). A core component of the Obama Administration’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) initiative and funded with a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Network develops and delivers innovative solutions to help cities address their toughest economic challenges and is currently working with nearly 40 cities across the United States. Other consortium members include Enterprise Community Partners, Public Financial Management, New York University, and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

As a key partner in the direct technical assistance component of the program, HR&A has conducted in depth assessments of city economic development capacity, recommended actions to improve location economic conditions, and provided a range of expertise to help cities advance catalytic economic development initiatives. For example, HR&A is leading the creation of a Health District Development Plan for Meridian, MS that will help the city better leverage its two anchor hospitals to attract additional residential and commercial development and support the continued revitalization of its historic downtown.

The importance of anchor institutions, particularly in the health care sector, has emerged as a key trend in the Network’s work in several cities. Building on this theme, the Network, NYU Wagner, and the Urban Institute recently released a report, entitled Striking a (Local) Grand Bargain that analyzes how cities and anchors work together and proposes new ideas on how these important relationships can be improved. Caroline and other consortium members discussed key findings from the study and experiences working with local governments on a panel called Insights from the Field: Strategies to Support Economic Turnaround at the 101st ICMA Annual Conference in September.

HR&A Principal, Jee Mee Kim will be moderating a panel discussion titled “Diversity in the Planning Profession” on Friday, October 30th at the American Planning Association New York Metro Chapter Annual Conference. This topic is a timely one as the APA NY Metro Chapter updates their 2001 study titled “Lagging Behind: Ethnic Diversity in the Planning Profession in the APA NY Metro Chapter Area”. At the time the study was conducted, it was revealed that the planning profession was not keeping up with the increasing diversity in the NY Metro Chapter area. The update of the study is part of a broader initiative to gauge how the profession has changed in the last decade, as well as identify barriers to recruitment and retention of people of color in the planning profession in the NY Metro Area.

As part of the larger initiative to discuss diversity in the profession, the panel is comprised of an accomplished group of women who represent leadership in the planning community. Panelists will share their personal stories and opinions on diversity in the planning profession, the challenges they faced in achieving their goals, and the opportunities they encountered during their careers. As cities and communities in NYC and across the country become “majority minority,” in what ways do planning, design, and policy need to shift to reflect this demographic reality? The panel is comprised of:

• Jee Mee Kim, Principal, HR&A Advisors – Moderator
• Maria Torres Springer, President, NYC Economic Development Corporation – Panelist
• Purnima Kapur, Executive Director, NYC Department of City Planning – Panelist
• Maxine Griffith, AICP, Executive Vice President, Columbia University – Panelist

Jee Mee’s passion for planning is evident in her work. She brings over 15 years of experience addressing issues such as growth, sustainability and resiliency in the urban environment. Her successful work for the City of New York through projects such as OneNYC, New York Rising Community Reconstruction, and the Coney Island Creek Tidal Barrier Study reflect Jee Mee’s commitment to sustainable, neighborhood-sensitive development.

Date: October 30, 2015
Time: 10:30 A.M.
Location: Lerner Hall, Columbia University, 2920 Broadway New York, NY 10027

HR&A is proud to participate at Rail~Volution, an annual conference dedicated to catalyzing livable communities through transit and transit-oriented development (TOD) on October 25th-28th in Dallas, Texas. The annual conference brings together over 1,000 planners, transit officials, consultants, developers, lenders, community stakeholders, non-profit organizations, academics, elected officials, health advocates and housing advocates to share the most cutting edge information in their fields. HR&A President Eric Rothman and Partner, Stan Wall, will both participate in panel discussions at this year’s conference.

On Tuesday, October 27 from 10-11:30 am, HR&A President Eric Rothman will moderate a panel titled “Financing Equitable TOD Shouldn’t Make You Nervous”. This panel will focus on how public officials and developers have utilized financing tools and policies to ensure that transit-oriented development projects provide and preserve affordable housing near transit. Eric and an esteemed group of panelists will use insights and examples that have worked to show how the financial puzzle can be solved. Other panelists will include:

• Ryan Tobin, Director of Real Estate Development, Denver Housing Authority, Denver, Colorado;
• Dan Lofgren, Principal, Cowboy Partners, Salt Lake City, Utah;
• Amy Rowland, Field Director, National Development Council, Salt Lake City, Utah; and
• Sherman Roberts, President and Chief Executive Officer, City Wide Community Development Corporation, Dallas, Texas.

Also on Tuesday from 2-3:30pm HR&A Partner Stan Wall, will contribute to a panel titled “Finding the Value, Capturing it and Putting it to Work”. As the former Director of Real Estate and Station Planning at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), Stan will discuss how the organization captured value for the transit system through its development program using several key projects as case studies. Other panelists include:

• Sean Brooks, Manager of Real Estate and Property Development, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Oakland, California (Moderator);
• Dan Bower, Executive Director, Portland Streetcar, Inc., Portland, Oregon; and
• Albert Hernandez, PE, Assistant Director Engineering, Planning and Development, Miami Dade Transit, Miami, Florida.

HR&A is particularly excited to participate in this year’s Rail~volution conference as it’s hosted in Dallas, just blocks away from our newest office. Please reach out to Eric Rothman or Stan Wall if you plan on attending – we would love to connect!

The Rebuild by Design Competition, an initiative of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, was an innovative response to the extensive damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. The initiative was launched in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and primarily sponsored by The Rockefeller Foundation.

HR&A led a multidisciplinary team supported by Cooper, Robertson & Partners. The team developed the Commercial Corridor Resiliency Project proposal, and was the only finalist team led by urban economists. The team examined three highly vulnerable sites, which had been impacted by Superstorm Sandy and are representative of the physical and economic conditions found throughout the affected region. The HR&A team developed a “design toolkit” which could be implemented in the selected sites, and additional sites with similar challenges – maximizing the usefulness of the team’s efforts.

HR&A was also a key consultant to the OMA team, leading economics and policy analysis for a Comprehensive Urban Water Management Strategy for Hoboken, New Jersey and neighboring areas. The strategy includes a four-pronged effort to: resist future storm surge with new coastal defenses; delay and store precipitation with a citywide green infrastructure network; and discharge floodwater via an enhanced network of stormwater pumps. The team received $230 million for the first phase of implementation. Identification of Hoboken Station as being at-risk for future flooding helped secure $146 million for flood-proofing along the Long Slip Canal from the Federal Transit Administration.

HR&A also led the economic strategy for a team led by PennDesign/OLIN, which developed “Hunts Point Lifelines,” a peninsula-wide strategy for resilience, including a perimeter levee that incorporates recreational access to the waterfront, a network of cleanways that function as both stormwater mitigation and roadway improvements, and an independent district energy grid that ensures continued food access during storm emergencies. The team was also selected to receive $20 million from HUD and $25 million from the City of New York for further study of these concepts.

HR&A is proud to have been involved in this creative and critical resiliency work. A PDF copy of the book can be downloaded here.

Santa Monica’s Civic Auditorium is a cherished community landmark and cultural pride for the City. After years of inactivity due to the high cost of maintenance and operations and increasing competition from newer music venues, an appointed Civic Working Group was created, with support from HR&A and a team of subconsultants, which included John Kaliski Architects, Sam Schwartz Consulting, and the Cultural Planning Group. The team was tasked with creating a policy framework to repurpose the Civic Auditorium into the anchor of a new mixed-use arts, culture, and entertainment district in the heart of downtown Santa Monica. The framework provides guidelines and recommendations to rehabilitate, redefine, and reconnect the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and its surrounding 10-acre site, to its adjacent community assets: the Civic Center, Santa Monica High School, the Ocean Park community and the City’s downtown core.

The Civic, as it is known, is a mid-twentieth century International Style auditorium designed by architect Welton Becket, and was designated a local historic landmark in 2002. In its prime, the Civic hosted glamorous events, such as the Academy Awards, and concerts headlined by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Dylan, and many others. To return the Civic to its cultural prestige, HR&A advised the Civic Working Group, and engaged City residents and stakeholders, to consider land use preferences, a range of development opportunities, financing implications, and priority initiatives that will promote the Civic’s rehabilitation, while ushering in a new era of activity and entertainment.

In one of the three well attended public workshops, HR&A introduced an interactive, participatory-planning tool, designed jointly by HR&A and software developer MetroQuest, that invited community members to create a feasible reuse program for the Civic site through a web-based “trade-off tool” application. The trade-off tool allowed participants to balance their respective cultural, recreational, and private land use preferences with the available land area, construction costs, parking requirements, and operating costs for their chosen development scenario. Nearly 1,700 people used the tool, which was also made available on the City’s website, giving the Civic Working Group valuable feedback on the community’s preferences for use in crafting its recommendations to the City Council.

The Civic Working Group incorporated HR&A’s analysis and research, community feedback from the public workshops, and results from 18 months of regular meetings into a set of guiding principles that seek to preserve the historic auditorium, create a cultural campus, provide public open space, and ensure a viable development project.

These guiding principles, and additional recommendations for City Council action, are included in the Civic Working Group’s Summary Report. The Civic Working Group will present these recommendations to the Santa Monica City Council in December 2015.

HR&A is proud to announce the opening of a Dallas office in the historic West End of downtown. The new office will strengthen our services to HR&A’s diverse clientele in Dallas, across Texas and the Southwest. To anchor that office, we are pleased to welcome Joseph Cahoon as Senior Advisor and appoint Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan as Managing Principal. Strong support for the office will be provided by HR&A’s Vice Chairman Candace Damon and Chairman John Alschuler who will draw on their over 30 years of experience in the management of complex, public-private real estate and economic development projects.
“Texas’s cities are experiencing a renaissance through a historic wave of urban investment, and HR&A is delighted to expand our regional presence to support the building of vibrant and resilient communities through creative development strategies and models of public-private collaboration.” Candace Damon, Vice Chairman

 

“Dallas and its surrounding metro area are attracting new waves of urban investment, supported by strong underlying economic trends and a shared spirit of possibility sustained by elected officials, civic activists, and visionary philanthropists. We are excited to bring our expertise to support these extraordinary trends.”Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan, Managing Principal, HR&A Dallas

 

Joseph Cahoon brings a mix of real estate and institutional knowledge to HR&A’s Dallas office. He has over 15 years of commercial and residential real estate experience. In addition to taking on the role of Senior Advisor, Joseph is the Director of the Folsom Institute for Real Estate at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Joseph brings new expertise and capacity to HR&A for innovative real estate development and partnership advisory services.

 

Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan has relocated to Dallas from HR&A’s New York office, and as Managing Principal will direct many of the firm’s ongoing projects and oversee the operations of the Dallas office. Elissa joined HR&A in 2011 and has contributed her expertise to major real estate and urban investment initiatives in Texas and the Southwest. Elissa, John and Candace have a track record of accomplishment that we trust will provide the basis for continued service to our clients, including:

 

• In Dallas, HR&A is co-leading a multidisciplinary team to develop a great park along the Trinity River that will provide compelling public spaces while driving economic investment.
• In San Antonio, HR&A created the Strategic Framework Plan to revitalize Center City with a “housing first” strategy to spark residential vitality in the urban core. This plan has contributed to over 2,000 new Center City housing units built to date, with another 3,000 in the pipeline.
• In Houston, HR&A advised the Menil Collection on a Neighborhood Preservation and Development Strategy that will deliver new quality museum facilities, mixed-use buildings, and public realm improvements that embody the museum’s mission to steward a “neighborhood of art.”
• In Denver, HR&A is advising the owners of the 40-acre transit-oriented Broadway Station redevelopment site near downtown as they develop a master plan, pursue public infrastructure financing, and obtain entitlements. The project is positioned to become the next center of high-density development in Denver.

 

HR&A is thrilled to open our Dallas office, which builds on our existing offices in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. You can find us in Dallas’s historic West End District at the Grove. Please reach out, or stop by, any time!

 

501 Elm St. Suite 450,
Dallas, TX 75202

Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan: elissa@hraadvisors.com
Joseph Cahoon: jcahoon@hraadvisors.com
Candace Damon: cdamon@hraadvisors.com

HR&A Advisors invites pedestrians to join us in celebrating vibrant urban public spaces on Friday, September 18th, when we transform three parking spaces in New York and Los Angeles into temporary parks as part of PARK(ing) Day 2015. First conceived in 2005 in San Francisco, PARK(ing) Day challenges people to rethink the way streets are used and reinforces the need for broad-based changes to urban infrastructure. Since 2005, the project has blossomed into a worldwide grassroots movement: Past PARK(ing) Days have included nearly 1,000 “park” installations in more than 160 cities in 35 countries on six continents.

HR&A Los Angeles will be partnering with the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti to “Roll out the Green Carpet” on Hollywood Boulevard, one of the City’s first “Great Streets.” Join HR&A LA at Hollywood and Vine outside the Hollywood Pantages Theatre from 12 to 6pm and take a break in one of our three programmed spaces. We will have a “Think Tank”, where you can brainstorm urban solutions with the Mayor’s team and HR&A in a “pop-up office” with free WiFi and cold brew coffee from Outpost Cold Brew. Or get your puppy-fix in the “Barklet” and play with dogs who are up for adoption from the Los Angeles Animal Services Department. If you need something a little more mellow, immerse yourself in the LA Philharmonic’s virtual reality orchestra experience, VAN Beethoven, with a 360 degree, 3D performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

On the other side of the country in New York City, HR&A’s temporary pocket park will be located on the corner at Greenwich Street and Franklin in Tribeca, from 9am to 5pm. Our “parklet” theme will focus on the NYC waterfront and will encourage pedestrians to think about how they use the waterfront now, and what lies in store for its future. In partnering with the The Waterfront Alliance and the New York Public Library, we will bring aspects of the waterfront to our parklet with recreational activities, water, and education. We hope you can join us at our parklet, which will include: paper boat making and a pool, a ping-pong table, a hammock, wifi and desks, story time with the NYPL, educational programs from The Waterfront Alliance, live plants, fake grass, and a voting system to understand how Tribecans think about the future of our waterfront.

HR&A’s participation in Park(ing) Day reflects our commitment to creating dynamic urban public spaces that strengthen communities and address city-wide challenges such as resiliency and economic development. Drawing on insights from our open space practice, our parklets are designed for maximum versatility, to accommodate a diverse set of users and events throughout the day.

Read about our Park(ing) Day installations on our website (2013 and 2014), and at WNYC, Untapped Cities, Tribeca Citizen, and on NTD Television.

On September 17th, HR&A President Eric Rothman will moderate a panel discussion on the tools and methods to finance infrastructure projects and spur development throughout New York and New Jersey at the Council for Development Finance Agencies (CDFA) New York/New Jersey Financing Roundtable Conference. Joined by a panel of professionals who have facilitated significant developments through PILOT bonds, brownfield remediation, tax increment financing, and special assessment districts, the discussion will explore different approaches, rationales, and best practices when preparing for significant investments in infrastructure.

Eric has demonstrated a resolute interest to improve opportunities for infrastructure development in New York and New Jersey, and specializes in creating strategies for infrastructure and transit-oriented development throughout the United States. He has created public-private development strategies for Campus Town at the College of New Jersey and Saint Paul, MN’s Union Depot transit hub. Additional transportation clients include New Jersey Transit, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Transport for London, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The CDFA is a national association dedicated to the advancement of development finance concerns and interests. CDFA is comprised of the nation’s leading members of the development finance community representing public, private and non-profit development entities.

HR&A is a proud sponsor of the conference and encourages colleagues and clients to register and gain valuable economic development finance insights. We look forward to seeing you on September 17th.