Uncategorized Archives - Page 11 of 14

The Dynamics of a Rapidly Growing City

On Friday July 24th Peter Orser, Director of the Center, was asked to make the keynote presentation to the ULI young leaders group. This energetic collection of emerging real estate professional gathered from Vancouver BC, Portland and Seattle to discuss “the Dynamics of a Rapidly Growing City” – a topic with many subtopics providing fodder for several panels and tours throughout the two day event. Peter touched on many topics from Growth Management to the whys and wherefores of Weyerhaeuser’s move to Pioneer Square. To stir the conversation just a bit, Peter made a few not so bold but startling predictions- such as “there is no question in my mind that the median price of a single family home in King County will exceed $650,000 in less than 5 years”–or—“While we hear a lot about density and an apartment construction boom, regionally we are still a culture that believes in an American Dream that is defined by single family home ownership, so our homeownership rate will not fall below 62%-regardless of the current short term trends we are seeing today.” The panel following, which included Peter and several other dignitaries who had participated in the Mayor’s task force on Affordable housing, continued the discussion with an energy and passion commensurate to the importance of the topic! Kudos to ULI-YLG on a fantastic event.

Tech boom boosts the Seattle luxury home market

Runstad Center Director Peter Orser is quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about how the tech boom has increased prices in the Seattle luxury home market, as executives look to relocate to neighborhoods with a short commute to downtown.

Congratulations, MSRE Class of 2015!

It was a beautiful evening last Thursday at the Russell Investment Center as the Runstad Center celebrated the graduating MSRE Class of 2015.

MSRE_2015_blog — Alex Wang, Yeon Soo Lee, Ben Lukes, Jamie An, Abood Alamoudi, Cameron Hypes, Corbin Jones, Patrick Kassin, Jeff Bernard, Andrew Hunt, Michael Miller

Thank you to all the family members, friends, board members, faculty and staff who came out to toast to our students. The Runstad Center is so proud of this incredible class. We have no doubt they are on their way to amazing careers.

Rich Haag + Thaisa Way at Town Hall Seattle | Wed 6/10 @ 7:30pm

Modern Impacts of Pacific Northwest Landscape Design: Rich Haag + Thaisa Way

Wednesday, June 10th
7:30 – 8:30 pm
Town Hall Seattle
Tickets: $5 purchase online Doors open: 6:30pm

Runstad Center Affiliate Fellow Thaisa Way and Richard Haag will sit down and offer a visual tour of the work he does, exploring the far-reaching influences of his work with ecologists, soil scientists, and how he kicked open the door for modern urban ecological design

Lunch with the Runstads

Last Thursday Jon and Judy Runstad sat down to lunch with our second year MSRE students. This has become an annual tradition, where students have the opportunity to share their experiences in the program as well as their plans for the future . Thanks so much Jon and Judy!

UW Team Wins Bank of America Low-Income Housing Challenge!

An inter-disciplinary College of Built Environment graduate student team organized by the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies won the 24th Annual Bank America Low-Income Housing Challenge on May 14th in San Francisco.

In the largest competition in the 24 years since Bank America started the Challenge an initial group of 10 University teams was reduced to eight for the round of regional competition judged by experienced affordable housing developers, architects and financial partners.

Four finalists representing Cal Poly, UCLA and UC Berkeley as well as UW were then invited to the final round in San Francisco where they defended their proposals in front of a six person panel of experts.

The UW team was composed of seven students, including Ben Broesamle and Sam Yimparsit Masters of Science in Real Estate, Zi Cai and Genevieve Hale-Case Master’s of Urban Planning, Mohammed Al-Humaid and Raymond Sayers Master of Architecture and Martha Sassorossi Masters of Public Policy Evans School.

The group of seven showed extraordinary teamwork in developing a proposal for a 69 unit affordable housing development in the Wedge neighborhood of Tacoma Washington. Jurors commented that the UW team presented the most feasible proposal of the four finalists and clearly demonstrated the high level of team work necessary to successfully develop affordable housing in both their oral and written presentations.

Competing for only the second year in the competition, the team benefited from the experience of last years team as well as the cooperation of Professor Mike Pyatok whose Affordable Housing Design Studio served to provide the site and partners that the team was able to work with to develop a realistic project as well as an outstanding design. In addition the team led an outreach program that interacted with neighborhood residents and community organizations.

Juror comments indicated that the UW team won in all judging factors including design, financial feasibility, program and community engagement.

Special thanks are due the Tacoma Housing Authority and the Salvation Army of Tacoma who served as Project Developer and Sponsor as well as Stephen White of Vitus Company for generously sponsoring the student’s travel expenses to San Francisco for the second year in a row.

AP Hurd to address Carbon Accountability at CoreNet luncheon

A Runstad Center faculty member and Affiliate Fellow, AP Hurd, is speaking at the monthly CoreNet luncheon. AP is President and Chief Development Officer of Touchstone as well as the author of The Carbon Efficient City, which shows how regional economies can be aligned with practices that drive carbon efficiency.

Governor Jay Inslee’s recent signature legislation, the Carbon Pollution Accountability Act, is merely one example of state and national legislation aimed at curbing carbon emissions through economic controls. As concerns about global climate change increase, new policies that put a price on carbon emissions will impact corporate business strategies. AP Hurd will lead a discussion exploring the implications of new carbon accountability policies on the corporate real estate industry.

CREW & Runstad Center Present: Built Environments Career Panel

This Thursday, April 16th, the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies is partnering with CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) to bring you a diverse panel of speakers talking about their careers. Whether you’re in planning, finance, construction management, design, HR, engineering, philosophy or… any discipline, the industry has something for you. How about customer service, project management, research, green building and sustainability… there are endless possibilities for you to explore and apply your interests in real estate! Please join us! Kindly RSVP

Built Environments Career Panel
Thursday, April 16th 2:30 – 4:30 pm
University of WA, Gould Hall Court

Moderator : Julie Eisenhauer, Clark Nuber

Panel

Lacey Ahlf / Skanska – Construction Management
Elena Arosteguy / Madison Marquette – Property Management
Cris Gunter / Callison – Architecture
Cleita Harvey / Urbis Partners – Brokerage
Angelia Wesch / Oles Morrison – Law
Jenelle Taflin / PacLand – Engineering
Rebecca Bloom / Vulcan Real Estate – RE Development/Finance

As The Pendulum Swings

We continue our series of blog posts from our Runstad Center Affiliate Fellows class of 2015, who have just returned from their travels to Santiago, Chile, and Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba, Brazil. Here, Joe Ferguson shares his thoughts about balance and moderation with regard to public housing incentives.

I have always found it discouraging when I see our government push policy too far in one direction in response to a problem and then watch it years later swung back the other way without any legitimate progress to speak of. It reminds me of the diet craze when most of us have realized that we could or should lose a few pounds, so we decide that we are going to completely cut out gluten or maybe sugar or maybe we decide to eat like a caveman or put large amounts of butter in our coffee in the morning. I commend the few that realize a life style from these methods to improve their health, but for the rest of us it seems inevitable that we return to the same eating habits as before and possibly even more indulgent given the fact that we’ve been deprived for so long. Consciously I know that the real answer is balance and moderation, but corporate marketing campaigns remind me that this is not how our society is structured. This is a first-world problem, and one in part that Chile is experiencing.

While in Santiago, a city representing approximately half of Chile’s 16 million people, we have learned of the country’s significant achievement of providing formal ownership housing to the majority of its population on the way to their goal to cover their entire housing deficit by 2020. The institutional framework established by the previous military regime (or dictatorship depending who you ask), provided an effective voucher system for

private industry to answer the call for housing. Amazingly, this goal and its underlying policy Over the past 14 years, approximately 100,000 units per year have been built. This is especially impressive given our country’s inability to address our own homeless population with anything but stale band-aids as solutions. Self-admittedly, Chile’s approach has not been without its problems and certainly lessons have been learned given the extreme segregation and lack of public goods provided for low-income communities. Unfortunately, the pendulum swung too far and private investment provided the necessary quantity of housing, but without a balanced regulation and thus the majority of the units are poor quality and communities were created with sub-standard living conditions. The government has recognized this and has recently begun an effort to renovate or redevelop most of the social housing it delivered during this period.

However, the effectiveness with which the volume of units were delivered under multiple government leaders is something to take note of and my hope for the United States is that we can focus on effective incentives for private investment in affordable housing. We can ensure cost-effective solutions and require quality product while improving our effectiveness and hopefully resist the urge to start over every time there is an election.

Bellevue Room Rental Ordinance Approved

The Bellevue City Council has approved a permanent ordinance to limit single-family homes from becoming boarding houses, and allowing rooming houses in designated multi-family districts. Listen to Dr. Stephen O’Connor comments on KUOW about the Council’s decision.