ULI Tampa Bay Trends: Insider insights on state of real estate

Urban Land Institute (ULI) Tampa Bay’s annual Trends Conference is a wide-ranging forum on the Bay Area’s real estate industry and a lesson in time efficiency. 

This year’s edition, “Built for the Bay: Reframing Real Estate in our Region’s Transformation,” noon to 5:30 p.m., April 30th at Armature Works in Tampa, will tackle a slew of significant industry and community topics in just over four-and-a-half hours, once you factor in a break devoted to a long-standing industry priority, networking.

The afternoon’s speakers will cover topics such as resilience, attainable housing, current industry trends, preserving the Bay Area’s character, as redevelopment reshapes the region, real estate and the restaurant industry, activating vacant retail space, the research and innovation coming out of the region’s healthcare systems, and the Tampa Bay Rays’ planned mixed-use development adjacent to the proposed baseball stadium at Hillsborough College.  

“We try to have something for everyone because our membership is so diverse,” ULI Tampa Bay Executive Director Lee Lowry says. “Our members are everyone from attorneys to developers to resiliency experts to architects.”

Here are more details on the schedule. Lesley Deutch, managing principal of John Burns Research & Consulting, provides an update on the industry’s conditions in “Are the Trends Trending?”

 “How Can We Preserve Tampa Bay’s Character?” is a panel discussion featuring executives from real estate developers WS Development, Kolter, and KETTLER, City of Tampa Deputy Administrator for Development and Economic Opportunity Geri Lopez, and moderator  Ben Dachepalli, with the law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings.   

“We continue to be attractive and have major developers coming in,” Lowry says. “How can we help these big companies realize – you wanted to be here. There is something about this place that did that. How do we preserve it?”

Taylor Ralph with REAL Building Consultants will spotlight the resilience features of the St. Pete Pier in “Surge: Resilience and the Award-Winning St. Pete Pier.”  Among its other awards, the pier was one of six projects to win the Urban Land Institute’s ULI Global Awards for Excellence in 2022. Resilient design features include elevating the entire structure three feet higher than the last pier to prepare for storm surge and sea-level rise. The entire structural design is based on a 100-year flood storm event, and the project uses green infrastructure stormwater features.  

“Homecooking: Real Estate and Tampa Bay’s Local Food Scene” features Ferrell Alvarez of Proper House Group, Joseph Guggino of Next Level Brands, and moderator Jeff Houck of The 1905 Family of Restaurants, parent company of the Columbia Restaurant, discussing the real estate decisions restaurateurs have to make and their impact.

“How do you make decisions on expansion?” Lowry says. “What’s the reality on the ground of being a restaurateur and, essentially, being a developer?”

“Keeping Tampa Bay Healthy: Medical Research and Innovation Projects” features representatives from Tampa General Hospital, Moffitt Cancer Center, Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, St Joseph’s South Hospital/BayCare Hospital Manatee, and moderator Alison Barlow of the St. Petersburg Innovation District in a discussion on the advances and innovations coming out of the region’s healthcare systems. 

“Zero Empty Spaces: Answers for the Industry” features Evan Snow, co-founder of Fort Lauderdale-based Zero Empty Spaces, describing the business’s unique focus area- breathing new life and business activity into vacant retail storefronts and restaurants. In its most well-established program, Zero Empty Spaces has transformed vacant shops into affordable artist studios at nearly three dozen locations, including Tyrone Square Mall in St. Petersburg. 

There’s also a pilot program turning empty storefronts into co-retail space for emerging brands, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. Another pilot program in the works converts empty restaurant kitchens into commissary kitchens for food entrepreneurs. Another initiative they’re testing repurposes empty bars and event spaces as cocktail labs for training bartenders.

 “Creative Policy Solutions for Attainable Housing” will have a Manatee County commissioner, a YIMBY St. Pete representative, and a representative from the Florida League of Cities discussing policy solutions to facilitate the construction of attainable housing. 

State laws like the Live Local Act have allowed affordable housing in industrial, commercial, planned-unit, and mixed-use zoning districts, while prohibiting local governments from requiring a zoning change for those projects. In this year’s session, a bill to allow accessory dwelling units (aka granny flats) by right in single-family residential zoning died in the House. The proposals have drawn support for facilitating affordable housing, and run into opposition for taking away local elected officials’ decision-making authority.

The scheduled talks finish with “Beyond the Ballpark: Sports-Led Real Estate Development.” Tampa Bay Rays Chief Executive Officer Ken Babby will discuss the team’s plans to develop a mixed-use district adjacent to the baseball stadium proposed at Hillsborough College. The Hillsborough County Commission and the Rays still need to reach a funding agreement for the stadium project to move forward.

The event ends with a networking happy hour from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

“It’s definitely one of our bigger events of the year,” Lowry says about Trends. “It’s fast-paced and features leaders from all these different sectors. I looked at the list, and it’s a stellar group of attendees, too. We will have networking opportunities that are really important in times like these, when things are uncertain.”

ULI Tampa Bay is a nonprofit organization and part of a global network of real estate and land use experts seeking to shape the future of the built environment through equitable and sustainable best practices. 

For more information and registration, go to ULI Tampa Bay Trends

This story is produced through an underwriting agreement between ULI Tampa Bay and 83 Degrees