ULI Chicago’s Green Flight Product Council hosted an all-day event on Wednesday, April 27th, which was the second in a three-part series for 2016. The 46-member Council consists of ULI members from a diverse cross-section of the real estate industry. The Green Flight program began with a panel discussion on the Affordable Requirements Ordinance (“ARO”), moderated by David Galowich of Madison Realty Group, Chair of the Green Flight Council.  It consisted of presentations by Larry Adelson, of Chico & Nunes, P.C., Matthew Fiascone of The Habitat Company and Alan Lev from the Belgravia Group. The panelists provided a brief overview of the ARO, followed by real life examples of working with the Chicago Housing Authority on satisfying ARO requirements, on both For Sale and Rental developments.

Continuing the ARO discussion, David Galowich moderated a second panel with Paul Colgan from the Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago, Brian Meltzer of Meltzer Purtill & Stelle and Konrad Schlater from Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc.  The panelists dove deeper into the intricacies of the ARO, focusing specifically on the implementation of on-site and off-site units subject to the affordability requirement.

Next was a panel discussion on the movement of corporate headquarters to the Chicago urban core presented by Steve Stratton, Meredith O’Connor and Christian Beaudoin, all from JLL. The JLL team provided insight on how Chicago stacks up against other cities, both nationally and globally, noting that Chicago ranked 6th amongst the “Top 10 cities for direct commercial real estate investment, Q1 2013 – Q4 2015”. JLL’s presentation also included a market update with a focus on current driving office market factors.

Following JLL’s presentation, The Telos Group, LLC joined us for lunch, including Will Flatt, Maggie Brophy, Joy Jordan and Jamey Dix. The Telos team provided us with valuable insight into the office amenity market, which included an overview of their redevelopment of Prudential Plaza, consisting of a lobby renovation, a 10,000 square foot fitness center and a 12,000 square foot rooftop park overlooking Millennium Park. The Telos team also provided an exciting look into their planned redevelopment of the Willis Tower, which luckily for us, and thanks to our host Dentons, was our Council venue.

After spending the first half of our day at Willis Tower, we made our way over to 350 N. Orleans, where we toured the MakeOffices co-working space, compliments of their CEO Raymond Rahbar. Following our tour of the MakeOffices collaborative space, we broke into four roundtable discussions. The roundtable discussion topics included Student Housing, led by John Diedrich from CA Ventures and Angela Spadoni of bKL Architecture LLC; Capital Markets/Interest Rates facilitated by Alex Hlavacek from Inland Institutional Capital Partners; Tech and Real Estate, led by Matt Chapdelaine of HerbFront, Ronan Remandaban of Liquideed, and Will Flatt from the Telos Group, LLC; and Millennials/Disruption/The Sharing Economy presented by Anastacia Fratto, our Green Flight Vice Chair representing D.R. Horton, Inc.

The afternoon continued with a presentation and interactive discussion with Raymond Rahbar, CEO of MakeOffices about the Sharing Economy and its intersection with the office real estate market. Raymond was a firm believer in his firm’s product, noting that co-working provided his tenants with added flexibility while affording those within the community the ability to make connections, leading to what he believed his tenants valued most – increased productivity.

After a very active day of learning, collaborating and exchanging ideas the Green Flight program concluded with a networking reception hosted by MakeOffices where discussions of emerging trends continued in anticipation of our next Council meeting in September.  See meeting photos

The CPC format offers a unique opportunity for members to engage in an ongoing conversation about real estate, redevelopment, and land use trends with their peers and offers access to leading industry professionals.   Learn more about ULI Chicago’s Product Council Program

Authored by Robert Damrat, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers LLC and Green Flight Member