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in retail, and most of all the changes in our attitudes towards race and equity and diversity and inclusion.

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So with that, we're going to hear first from Detroit from Dan and Melissa and then we'll move on to Nolan from Portland. Thank you so much.

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Hello everyone. It's such a pleasure to be with you here tonight, our comments are going to be very short so and I have a lot to go through I was asked to sort of set up a story between for about, maybe the last hundred years or so, to where we are now

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and then Melissa is going to take it from there. So we're actually going to start, and go to Detroit feature city that Melissa and I co worked on and then take it from there.

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So, first everybody with the same issues that I like to think about Detroit are thinking of it as really trying to figure out identity or identifying and redefining or refining, both of those recasting our self perception was one thing that I noticed

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when I arrived in Detroit in 1998. And what I began to notice was the self perception of the city, even more than what the national perception was but how people felt about their, their own city beginning to help recast that in a way that would turn it

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help turn it around because the only way something will turn around is if you have a vision of the future that is positive is moving forward. So, I was drawing from a book that I would that I would think you might, if you haven't heard of look at my Harvard

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professor Rosabeth moss Kanter, it's called confidence in this book and she began to look at the notion of the difference between a competence corporate based business based thinking about what happens when a company is loose sort of losing on a losing

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streak that she says versus a winning streak, the cross the point of where they went. The point of time, the momentum of going down to be the same process of going up of another company, but they're seen in very different ways.

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I want to talk about that in relationship to the city of Detroit. So with that, let's start. This is a graph, if you will, for the last, sort of, the last hundred years of of population.

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Don't worry about all the little numbers I'm just trying to make a point. The first blue our arrow that you see right there, pointing down that's the 1967 rebellions and that's where many people would talk about the city of Detroit, as being the time

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where we lost the population, but as you notice it actually was beginning to happen here, which is 1950.

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I would actually argue that that's when we began to get a negative number we were having more people leave the city versus the number of people entering the city, and that what we really need to look at is here, which is 1929, where the stock market crash,

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what happened there is that we ended up having our population slow down. So, you, you could be getting to see this here and then you might say, Well, What about that.

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That line going up. That was really because of Detroit being the arsenal democracy, there was a blip of population growth for working and then it flattened back out but because I'm doing a line across 10 years It feels like a steady growth.

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So we really when you think about it, have had 90 years of population slow down, not just 40 or 6090, but then I would like to begin to illustrate that we actually have had 30 to 40 years of population stabilizing the percentages that you can barely see

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on the bottom, begin to show that towards the last 3040 years, we've begun the flat map, a stabilization, that's only even occur and has only increased in the last 10 years from 2010.

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What happened in the 1940s or 50s was a study that was done of the World War Two.

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United States strategic bombing strategy where they looked at the outcome for the bonds in Japan and Europe, particularly Germany, you.

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If all you need to know the funny thing is that little blue box there it says decentralization what they were essentially saying after looking at all the effects that occurred, was that the decentralization wasn't really that deep depth finder city fix

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fix all that the third, the further apart things were, the less effect the bombs would have, of course. But since Detroit was the arsenal democracy, by the NFL, the effect that this would have on our cities, we need to be identified the centralized our

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cities in Detroit became one of the key cities that were incentivized to do denser fi. So, the business is obviously the car company, where we're funded to move factories out not just out to another center, but apart from each other.

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That led to widespread vacancy abandonment, we know that I wanted to show this graph really quickly, because when I arrived I've heard people compare ourselves to Boston Manhattan San Francisco I happen to live in all those places and bx but you know

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there's a big difference between those cities in their density in Detroit and our density. And so I began to look at other cities I'm only going to show one right here, but you can see that Detroit as 139 Square land miles, and our population as of the

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2019 estimate is 670,000 plus or minus. You can look at Portland, with almost the same land, my square miles and 30 square miles of 134, and you begin to see the population is only about 15,000, less than Detroit.

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I think that the psyche this gets back to self self understanding self perception, the psyche of Detroit would be that it would have a population much different than a city like Portland, it matches in the same shape Denver's in the same shape and size,

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very similar or less population.

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One thing that image I like to show it sets up, if you will, the spirit of the Detroit, we have to constantly work for it. This is a graduation ceremony at a school, the Henry Ford School, it was taken from the taken from the archives there, there's a

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person where that blue arrow is entering this giant pot persons wearing clothing from where they came from, at the rim of the pot you'll see all these folks, a bunch of white males, stirring the pot.

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And then the person comes out of the pot wearing a suit and tie waving the American flag, a simulation, we, we know that image and this is a school graduation ceremony.

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It's talking about the, it's obviously focusing on the melting pot, and I argue in the work that we've done in Detroit, to focus on a mosaic, which is really a colorful composition, where each item in the composition still retains identity, whilst you're

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a bigger image, a community you can have the individual and community together, versus creating bread, or my genetic, or savings, the issues of Detroit, with this began to illustrate the issues of the population density compared to other cities began

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to say that the issues of Detroit, were not just issues of land use and population growth. So I study was done that Melissa and I were a part of and that party of reference the Detroit works project which became Detroit future city the product, it was

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a partnership between government philanthropy and business core corporate. The them together, these three work we work together and defined a if you will a strategic decision making process that worked on six categories economic growth city systems neighborhood

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land and building assets that essentially met the land and buildings that were called vacant we call them open space opportunities slander building assets land use, and civic engagement.

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This was the product that was produced, and I'm just going to show one quick image from that and then I will be handing it over.

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This was the tie, if you will, timeline and a diagram of all the tactics, I co directed the process as was mentioned by co directed the civic engagement process that was done when I was when I was the piece that I lead and this showed all the tactics

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that were used to engage 90,000 unique Detroiters in the city to, to create the planning that you saw that book that you saw, I just got to show one, just to make the point that the uniqueness of something there's a roaming table that we called it, which

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was really about being a part of people's lives don't ask them just to come to meetings, go to them. This is in southwest Detroit which was the next community, and Charles who was working with my working alongside me was the was there talking with people

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and we engage that way, we met six bears, Charles again, we met 6000 individual Detroiters at this table alone It grows, all around the city three times three times a week and it would be there for hours each time not just a few minutes but ours.

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back, relax and talk to people if they would come and so that we would be asking, Is this a unique sort of a very rough thing that was designed quickly to be constructed be able to be packed up and put into a backup in your car.

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So, all that I wanted to make two overall comments first, and plant and work like this, we always heard here two things, a group of people will say when you please just stop talking and start doing something, you know about complaining fatigue design

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fatigue. They want to see something happen. And then on this side, we begin to see we hear people say but no one's talked to me yet. And so, our actions will always try to be here in the middle where we were looking at how do we do both.

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How can we be addressing this, as well as addressing that at the same time, open that for questions and answers. And then the last point is that all of his work was trying to ensure that the cultural uniqueness of Detroit must not be seen as interim oftentimes

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we hear from Detroiters themselves saying you know this is really cool, but when will xB here which was usually just a national chain that would lose the identity of what was their first already that's been there, that they love.

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And we wanted to make sure we ensured that we ensured their, Their.

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They're insured to them that those things would still be there and not be pushed out into the in the future and that's the work that we're continuously doing and obviously there are no right answers to this kind of work.

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And so with that, I am going to now I thank you and I'm going to hand it right over to Melissa Dittmar, and she's going to talk about her efforts specifically in the downtown, I've been talking more about this Detroit in general, most of my work has been

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in the neighborhoods and I'm happy to talk about an answer questions that have to do with the relationship of both. Thank you very much.

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So thank you, Dan.

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I'm, I'm pulling up my presentation.

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And I just want to start by saying Good evening everyone here in Detroit, it's 720 so the sun is going down, and it's the conclusion of the week so I appreciate you all being here to learn about our city.

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We're always happy as damn knows to talk about Detroit, especially through the lens of different narratives.

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So I'm here to talk about bedrock.

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And I'm basically going to take one tiny step back forward from where Dan was and then move forward with this narrative.

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So, about 10 years before Dan got here.

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This was the headline of the New York Times concerning what was happening in Detroit, what Dan outlined in his sort of historic summary. And at a national level, and even at an international level.

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Detroit was seen this tragedy, and it was always shown as a picture of bacon and or abandoned buildings and talking about the extreme population decline and racial issues, and the emptying of a city that resulted in a tragedy.

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So this was 1990.

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And then, about one day on got here, and because of the decades of work being done towards trying to stabilize that population decline, which he talked about in the graph.

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There were a series of development initiatives that happened as led by the city and led by key stakeholders downtown. So in the mid 90s gm bought what was previously Ford's headquarters.

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The Renaissance building and purchased it with the intention of moving the entire General Motors headquarter down there and improving that facility.

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as it was along the river from.

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Also in the 90s. There was this wave of urban ism of

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stadiums, and this has happened across the country is not unique to Detroit in any way but Detroit lined up and did its march of stadiums, so that we had Comerica Park under construction.

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As a result of all of the vacant land and demolitions that it occurred before that, there's that easy ability to assemble land and construct really big projects.

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So we had headquarter with GM, we had multiple sports stadiums, that were being developed, we had casinos. And so during the 90s, we had a series of developments that happened that were all extremely large extremely singular and use and targeted to very

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specific audiences.

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So what we have is even after multiple decades of economic development, land assemblage and physical development. We arrived upon another headline at a national level and Time Magazine, showing the tragedy of Detroit, because the singular use large scale

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development happening within the central business district and along the riverfront wasn't stabilizing that population growth enough, and was not turning that national tragedy headline around.

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So right at the moment the dams talking about with Detroit future city.

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We had a series of things happening in Detroit, we had those decades of single, single use large development. We had the city was going through

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bankruptcy, and was being stabilized the automotive industry was also going through bankruptcy, to have the big three declared bankruptcy and we're asking for federal support.

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We had our political leaders, dealing with legal issues. And we basically had a city that had reflected this sort of national tragedy narrative for multiple decades, understanding a we need to diversify in terms of economics, in order to financially stabilize

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the city and move it forward.

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So, at that moment when Detroit future city was being worked on in 2009 2010.

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Dan Gilbert who, at that moment, and the Cleveland Cavaliers and Quicken Loans had his headquarters out in Livonia, which is a suburb of Detroit and decided to move all of his Quicken Loans employees downtown into this building here which was the Compuware

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building. The Compuware building had been owned and built by Compuware which was a business Corporation, and at in 2009 2010. We're also in the height of the housing crisis.

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And many of the corporations that were already downtown were struggling and deciding, or doing layoffs and the buildings that were already stabilized, people were moving out of.

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So they reached out and said, Hey, would you like to occupy to these floors down here and bring bring your business down and Dan Gilbert, who owns the company that I work for bedrock real estate decided to go ahead and do that.

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And he did it under a mission of doing good to do well.

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So, be with the as the owner of Quicken Loans.

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It was a real sort of mission driven decision to move his company downtown and help to stabilize Detroit's central business district. So, in 2010, those 1700 people moved into this building.

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And over the next in 2011 bedrock was created with the intention of starting a real estate company that would begin to purchase up some of these vacant buildings downtown.

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And over the years, you'll see that with each of these blue buildings that are highlighted. This marked the acquisitions and growth of bedrock as a real estate company.

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Now these acquisitions, were targeted because Quicken Loans as a company was experiencing meteoric growth.

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So, every time a building was purchased the Quicken Loans as a company would grow, and that many more jobs were created, and needed a place in which a building in which to put its team members, so that by the time we got to 2019 2020 in Detroit central

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business district alone, we had over, 115 properties. We had amassed an amazing amount of parking spaces, through parking decks because Detroit is the Motor City, and we had committed a significant amount of money to these development projects.

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And what this looks like an actual visualizations is here we have Woodward Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare that connects Detroit downtown, all the way out into the suburbs.

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When we purchased these buildings here in 2010, they were all vacant with a few of the ground floors occupied by retail or restaurants. And then here we are a decade later, where we create in partnership work but with Shinola watches to create the Shinola

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hotel. We had purchased a significant amount of these buildings, up and down, this Woodward corridor. What we hadn't purchased we were working to master lease the ground floor in order to create a sort of contiguous ground floor experience that was activated

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on the streetscapes.

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We had purchased over 30 vacant historic buildings, of which we were working through the process of turning them. As you can see from the left, which was an old office building high rise to residential or we had taken almost completely vacant office buildings,

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and then removed the, the layering that had been done to the historic structures revealed the historic nature of them, and then occupied them either with Quicken Loans employees, or started attracting other businesses to occupy those office buildings.

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We had purchased over 40 acres of vacant land through development agreements, like these nine acres and brush park here in 2010, and then master planned and started construction on over 400 new units of residential and or ground floor business spaces.

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And, importantly, we had started an entire streetscape and public space activation strategy that started to bring people back into the public spaces and, sort of, improve the city and the region's collective memory and future memory of what these public

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spaces mean to them, and increase their sort of emotional connection with physical spaces in an urban environment in Detroit.

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We did that both in public spaces and also in a series of very strategic highly curated free activations downtown so I'm going to take a moment to talk through like we took one of our ground floor vacant spaces that's 5000 square feet turned it into a

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roller skating rink. Now this was a former bank, and we were current we were looking for tenants and have been looking for tenants or for the space over the past couple of years.

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And while we were still looking for the right tenant. For this location on campus marshes, we had a roller skating rink there for about six months, we had snow architecture come in and do a bubble pit.

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That was called the beach, within the space here, free and open to the public. We curated, a ton of architecture and design events that were free and open to the public, like our Detroit design 139 biennial exhibition.

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And then, coffee shops and immersive experiences, all of what you're free, all of which were targeted to

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just a diversity of target audiences. So that over those 10 years, and what began with that narrative of tragedy, still continue to slightly change from ruin porn to try Detroit trying unconventional approach to Detroit was crumbling and here how it's

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reviving so that now we have tragedy of Detroit on your left, and by the time we got to 2017 2018 Detroit, the most exciting city in America by the New York Times.

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So, we have had a significant impact on the central business district.

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And because we have been doing good to do well with a mission driven agenda.

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We have been able to have not just impact on the development like this 1 million square foot Hudson site tower that's designed by shop architects and is under construction right now to redeveloping two blocks right next to campus marshes, with.

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million square feet of new residential and a million square feet of new office to the city modern project where we start to move out into the neighborhoods beyond that to another 20 acres of development.

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Immediately north of the CBD, that we're currently planning right now to partnerships with the University of Michigan, and an innovation district.

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That was meant to be a jail building and a jail, that was under construction. And we stopped that and said maybe there's a better way in which we can use this land in the central business district, potentially a innovation district is the better way to

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go.

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So, 10 years of impact 10 years of monumental Growth and Opportunity created. But what we also realized in 2020, is that we had a moment where we paused and said, are we doing the right thing here.

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We're having a significant impact. But are we having the most amount of impact as possible to the people that live work and play within the city. So I included this quote here where it talks about.

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If you're not doing multicultural marketing particular particular in a place like America, you're not doing marketing, and in 2020 with the pandemic and the significant amounts of civil rights demonstrations happening across the United States.

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We took that year, and really drill down into, who are we marketing to, who are we designing for and what are the, who are the audiences that we're trying to create the central business district for.

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And so we we took a step back and said okay, we understand that there's dimensions of diversity, and those cover a wide range of attributes, but we also understand that there are different dimensions as well so we're not just talking about race, we're

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not just talking about sex. We're also talking about education and religious beliefs and geographic locations where people come from married or not married in age and so forth.

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And what we need to do is be able to utilize our development and the way in which we're designing and our process is to create an environment both built and natural that can eliminate systematic inequality, and I.

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This is the way in which we've been moving forward with our developments in the past couple of years. So our company has put forward an action plan to address race.

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Equity inclusion.

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But we also think that's, that's not enough. And so what we have done over this, the past.

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Spent a longer process of about 18 months, is we really stopped to take a moment.

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We spent a lot of time talking with all of the creatives and designers and multi-disciplinary real estate professionals that are within bedrock listened.

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Took inventory of all the issues that we had, and then broke into different divided all those issues up into different traumatic streams broken to the work streams, and then attempted to come up with solutions that would start to address those.

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And what we found was super messy process, and that it was not linear, by any means. And so often we would have to circulate circulate back to an earlier step to then move forward, and it became quite a bit of a feedback loop.

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But over the past.

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18 months now, what we've done is we've taken a really strategic look at all of our processes, all of the ways in which we're doing things but also the ways in which we're delivering things, how we're delivering those, those creative narratives marketing

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strategies or spaces, and how what target audiences, we're pushing those, those opportunities out to, and then how we can be better designing our spaces.

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So, the themes that we heard as we went through this process was, it's not just about how we do things but it's also about who we partner with who we hire, and also how we hire internal to our team who we sponsor the connections and groups that we help

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move forward, and have more discussion and more input into the future of the built in natural environment in Detroit.

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And ultimately, we have no like simple, easy answers of frameworks by which we can continue to, or start to solve these problems right away but it needs to be a consistent and ongoing conversation that we're always moving towards improvement both by how

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we look at ourselves and move ourselves forward as bedrock but then how we do all of our projects through this lens of multicultural design in order to guide this portfolio forward.

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So, with that, That concludes my portion of the presentations, and then I am going to hand it over to Randy.

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Now it's actually time for Nolan. Oh, but no, sorry. Thanks for joining us. Okay. Yeah, thank you.

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And I was having a little trouble with my mic. Can you hear me now.

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Yes, excellent, excellent. So, I have to I try to encourage people never to start with an apology but I do have to apologize that I'm going to try to pack 40 years into 15 minutes here.

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So some things will

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get skimmed over but I'm going to talk a little bit about what Portland, where Portland is today. And what we've been through in the last year, and the ways in which we might think about learning from Detroit, but also learning from ourselves and our

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own history.

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In terms of the, the downtown.

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This has been an image that is probably one that not very many of us have actually lived in in real time but we've certainly become very familiar with it, as the National face of our city or international face of our city really in the last year, and.

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Well, it's certainly been promoted as you know the whole city's on fire, whether you listen to Donald Trump or maybe even some economists from Lake Oswego.

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The effects of it have been very real and they've been real from the street level, which involves businesses who were struggling from coded already. And then, in addition to, you know, business closures and lack of pedestrian activity.

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We've really taken it to the next level with boards on Windows. That really take away. Even some of the virtues that that a closed business can provide in terms of the experience of being in a city and that we've come to appreciate and love about our

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own city and its vitality.

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When it comes to how do we quantify this Urban Land Institute put out their annual report on the investment appeal of cities the emerging trends report in November, and it showed that we had gone from a third place city in 2017, to a 66th place city,

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out of 80 cities in 2021 and Mike Wilkerson another different local economist really said this is about reputational damage, and it really distinguishes us even from some cities that have had a bigger hit with regard to Office vacancy leasing cities that

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:28.000
have actually seen population, decrease. While we've seen populations increase so whether or not that first image reflects reality of the last year, whether it reflects the reality of the coming years.

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:39.000
This absolutely affects the way that a lot of people either in our region or beyond view Portland, as a place to invest in as a place to visit.

00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:45.000
As a place to work and potentially as a place to live. So we've got some challenges.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:51.000
Some folks I've been in contact with have been challenged characterizing the challenge in this way.

00:39:51.000 --> 00:39:55.000
We've lost 40 years.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:05.000
And that's, that is a time period that will be familiar to people who have been paying attention to Portland's renaissance of its downtown.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:10.000
And so I want to jump back to before that 40 year period.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.000
For those who think of Portland's current downtown vitality.

00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:23.000
There was a time when we were proud of other things like how easy it might be to jump in your car and get home to the suburbs.

00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:39.000
Even some of the places that seemed like they might have been designed for pedestrians were at one time card dominated, and the impact of this across our downtown is really hard to conceive of compared with today.

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:57.000
What you have here is the Willamette River, with what was then harbor drive and now Waterfront Park, as well as acres and acres and acres of surface parking supporting the, the office environment that was there.

00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:14.000
And these were very, very different times and the fact that we're not there is a result of remarkable and intentional actions. This is the block that many of us now, all of us hopefully now know is Pioneer Courthouse Square, formerly a parking lot for

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:17.000
the Myron Frank

00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:18.000
store.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:28.000
And there was a series as I said a very intentional actions that took us away from this.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:33.000
The one may be the start of planning for Waterfront Park.

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:54.000
The 1972 downtown plan was certainly one of them really establishing the priority for high density focused around transit mixed uses a strong and compact retail core, and a number of special districts that that had purpose and character within the central

00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:58.000
city in 1977.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:16.000
At that time, that was really a bus small opened up, but made a significant investment in the public realm. And in transit is a way of getting to and from downtown being a little less car centric waterfront park opened in 1978.

00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:21.000
Pioneer Square, opened in 1984.

00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:34.000
And then, Max entered into the downtown in 1986. And all of these improvements and plans are essentially bracketed around that 40 year time period.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:40.000
And so while none of them is exactly at the at the mark. When people talk about we've lost 40 years.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.000
This is a lot of what they mean.

00:42:44.000 --> 00:43:00.000
And so, The notion that we could have lost that I think is a little too soon to tell. I think that there are certain, there are certainly evidence that we have lost momentum, and that we have lost reputation.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:17.000
One of the things that these actions these plans. These investments did is they really branded our city, in a way that you would not have said, Portland downtown Portland was branded in the 50s or the 60s or even the early 70s as a livable place as a

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:25.000
walkable place as a place with vitality and vibrancy, not just during the business day.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:27.000
But evenings and weekends as well.

00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:40.000
So, after this, this period of 10 or 15 years of these catalytic investments that really put Portland in a different direction and a different reputation.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:46.000
Those were carried on to the river district plan, and that we now know as the pro district.

00:43:46.000 --> 00:44:00.000
Really, doubling down, both on transport transit and transportation investments, public realm and open space design, and the notion of the central city as a place to live, as well as a place to work.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:15.000
So in addition to job growth, thousands and thousands of housing units. And we don't always give the river district credit for this but also quite a number of affordable housing units as well and we'll, we'll circle back on that a little bit.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:21.000
But between the street car and bicycle infrastructure.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:31.000
These even enhanced Portland's reputation as a livable intentionally planned city, even more than it had been before.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:42.000
And of course, we had Portland yet a number of other ways that that brand was distorted or amplified or cartoon defied.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:47.000
But in general, there was a sense that, that we'd created a livable place.

00:44:47.000 --> 00:45:02.000
And we were pretty proud of it. We were proud of the fact that we had developed a livable place, and we were proud of the fact that it was a series of an intentional, thoughtful and planned moves.

00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Having said that, there were some downsides and those downsides started to become pretty evident, I want to say about 10 years ago.

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:25.000
Some of them having to do with the cost of housing, and the cost of living, and the statistic, down at the bottom, about the fact that many in our society, and in our city.

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:34.000
We're no longer able to live in places that were amenity rich and places that had transportation and transit options.

00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:48.000
Even today we're seeing some of the areas that we invested in significant pedestrian and bike infrastructure, are no longer affordable to the kinds of folks who may take the most advantage from them.

00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:57.000
Cost of living and housing scarcity has affected people of color, even more than the general population.

00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:18.000
Translating and very visible in some cases, shifts in population from some of the places that used to feel like home and used to feel like a, a cultural cluster of identity in certain parts of our city in our region to outer further areas that as I mentioned

00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:37.000
earlier, maybe less amenity rich. And so, The notion that we had created this livable place is livable region, and at the center of a little livable downtown that sense was not shared by everyone, and not necessarily celebrated by any everyone over the

00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:38.000
last decade.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:57.000
So prosper Portland, our city's Redevelopment Agency and Economic Development Agency started making a pivot, about 10 or 12 years ago, while Sam Adams was mayor which continued during the last two mayor's really toward focusing on equitable redevelopment

00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:09.000
equitable economic development, focusing on not just brick and mortar, how do we get people to want to live in the city and want to live in the central city want to work in the central city.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:26.000
We had a lot of success with that. And so this was really, how do we make sure that the benefits of economic development are well distributed, that in fact, we may be even using our economic development dollars and efforts to support, strengthen and help

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:37.000
those who may have been impacted, or not helped by patterns of investment over the previous 40 or 50 years.

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:52.000
I got an opportunity with Patty, to work on a project that was emerging at the same time that prosper Portland was making this shift the Broadway quarter project at the center of which was the redevelopment of the historic or not the historic that the

00:47:52.000 --> 00:48:11.000
50s Central post office sorting facility. Really sandwiched in between the success, the urban international success of the river district, and the historic parts of Old Town Chinatown, and Union Station.

00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:32.000
And this, I think had happened, 10 years prior. The criteria would have been very much similar to what the goals of the river district plan were, which is urban density of housing and jobs, high quality public ground transportation options and walkability.

00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:40.000
And of course, those were all all goals but there was really a recognition that we needed to do more with regard to equitable economic development.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:53.000
The site was of course located in a place where many of the investments I just described in transit and walkable urban is urbanism we're already made.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:07.000
Great, how do we configure 4 million square feet of real estate in a reasonable way in this site. But to prosper his credit, They recognized that their job was evolving.

00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:19.000
It was changing even over the course of the five years that we worked on this. We saw the way that they manage public engagement, the way that they manage this conversation about the goals of this project evolving.

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:33.000
So one of the things that they did was the city's first community benefits agreement, really working with non traditional participants in a project like this not just focusing on stakeholders in a geographic proximity but really looking at a regional

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:49.000
level at culturally specific communities minority business groups, labor organizations, housing advocates, bringing together a steering committee that would be thinking much more than the physical development opportunities on the site but thinking about

00:49:49.000 --> 00:50:06.000
jobs, thinking about sustainability, and not just contracting jobs but jobs in the long term and the kinds of labor agreements that might make a catalytic redevelopment like this, serve more than just a redevelopment purpose.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:22.000
So the community engagement process itself as I mentioned, had a non traditional participants in the steering committee but we also took this process far beyond where we might have traditionally, having community open houses and pop up, open houses all

00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:37.000
throughout the city, including out at foster road at the North Portland library. Really meeting people if we wanted this to be a regional destination, reaching out to people who might not think of the pearl or the river district as a place that was made

00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:51.000
for them or as a place that welcomes them. And we spent a lot of time talking about what would be principles for racial and social equity. And, you know, we started out thinking about these are principles of design and urban design.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:51:08.000
And a lot of what we heard from people wise it's also principles of leasing, what kind of tenants Do you have what kind of programming Do you have, what are the things that distinguish a Pioneer Square or Waterfront Park from some of the open spaces that

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:24.000
we think of as being very successful and love in the pro district but may not be feel accessible to so many people in our region. So we really dug into that and assembled a number of strategies that were intended to reinforce this is a place that anybody

00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:33.000
in the region, no matter the income and amount of the race. I would feel comfortable coming as a patron as an employee or as a resident.

00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:51.000
And we're pretty happy with where we are and a planning level but a plan is just that it will take a lot of commitment and long term engagement from those diverse stakeholders as well as from the stewards of the vision. And so we'll see, in my mind, if

00:51:51.000 --> 00:51:59.000
we are successful at this, it may be the next chapter in the Portland story and in Portland Central City story.

00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:13.000
And ultimately, we don't know the future of work, and the future of downtown's, but my suspicion is that it will be a little less dense from an employment perspective for that for cities to be successful, they'll need to be a little more dense from a

00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:28.000
residential perspective so projects like this that are inclusive and welcoming, both economically and culturally, have a lot of promise. So, again with apologies to all the things I had to skim over in that amount of time.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:33.000
Look forward to the q amp a

00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:36.000
great thanks No.

00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:42.000
See we get everybody back on now.

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:46.000
Okay.

00:52:46.000 --> 00:53:01.000
I like to start with maybe downtown NB and get Dan and Melissa and Nolan to talk about what in

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:16.000
the other city So Dan and Melissa in Portland and Nolan talking about Detroit. What have you envied about what has happened and, you know, let's say pre pandemic

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:21.000
sort of ingredients that you wish you had,

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:24.000
sorry are you asking me that question.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:28.000
I mean, are you asking me the question I'm asking everybody the question.

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:45.000
Oh, yeah all three of you so, so, so no and if you could like talk about elements of Detroit that you feel you know they've done particularly well that that maybe you envy a little bit from a Portland perspective and then Melissa and and Dan talk about

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:59.000
what what Portland envy they have. Well, the grass is always greener on the other side and so it's always feels like dramatic simplification when you know how difficult these things are to do in reality, but the two things that have stood out to me.

00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:02.000
From a distance that seems like Detroit's done well.

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:11.000
One is the willingness and ability to act rapidly, what's happened in the last decade and a little bit more than decade is remarkable.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:18.000
Just absolutely incredible in terms of the energy, energy that's been created the investment that's been focused, that's, that's one thing.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:39.000
The second is I do think bedrock has had a singularly impressive and impactful role as a, you know, really a single individual but you know a single entity with a mission with a purpose, with a whole lot of money making a series of investments and moves

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:44.000
in a consistent way projecting to other partners that that's a long term commitment.

00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:47.000
I think we have.

00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:59.000
So so so many actors moving in the right direction. Over the course of Portland's story so I don't want to make it seem like we don't have positive, private sector partners who are who are making a difference.

00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:08.000
But I do think that the scale of that one entities participation is enviable.

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:27.000
I will say that Portland's approach to prioritizing the importance of public space, so many decades earlier has really set a nice framework for for growth.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:41.000
And, you know, even if Detroit only really got around to understanding the importance of its Riverfront understanding the importance of a public space framework.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:57.000
In the past 10 years and has really succeeded in moving some elements of that forward, but not as significantly and as comprehensively as Portland has so many decades earlier.

00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:05.000
I would say the. The other aspect that we always have and we have no matter what city is public transit.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:26.000
We dance nodding virtually like public transit, and now you know the real question coming through the pandemic into the new state of office is what is going to be the future of public transit, at least you already have the framework in place, we have

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:43.000
been trying, at one point Detroit had the largest public transit network of any city in the US was systematically dismantled by the automotive industries that were here.

00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:56.000
And we have since been trying to build a case for public transit support sense. And what we wouldn't do for a public transit that bone.

00:56:56.000 --> 00:57:01.000
I don't know, Dan. I know you agree.

00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:17.000
I would, I would like to amplify your first comment, because I do think I this past year for Portland has been rough, rough for you represent, I think, I think Nolan you really categorize the quite clearly and he covered a lot of ground, and really do

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:30.000
do a compliment of how you clarified that and I do think it's, it literally I didn't actually, I didn't actually come back to the book of the confidence of the confidence book by Mary by rose Beth Kanter.

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:41.000
That way, when you look at our two cities being almost the same population growth population size. People see Detroit.

00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:45.000
Minus

00:57:45.000 --> 00:58:04.000
Melissa's presentation as going down and Portland is going up though we're the same time, where it's really shifting the perception. And so I actually think you're 40 years of clarity of vision can withstand this sort of blip and I think the blip and

00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:18.000
I say that not to minimize it. But as Melissa was presenting illustrate what how they view how they saw this year as a way to sort of how do we act on it and see it as really amazing opportunity.

00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:33.000
I think that's what this year, can only enhance the work that you've already been doing for the last, but it doesn't mean you're not going to sort of have those downturns because that's just human human nature is to have the ups and downs and cities are

00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:46.000
humans I mean the objects but we inhabit them so it's us. So I think that clarity of vision, I could not amplify that more I wish we have, we were coming off a clarity like that, for sure.

00:58:46.000 --> 00:59:07.000
One thing I'd like to sort of point out though, um, you know, in some ways, Portland's reputation old damage began really in the mid teens of this century, there was a particular article by in the Atlantic Monthly about, you know, his Portland a racist

00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:24.000
city as the widest city in America major city in America, and at least in my observations that really marked a kind of turning point, you know, in terms of suddenly we were know the goal, to the, the pedals were wilting on the road so to speak.

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:37.000
And, and suddenly you know you know as equity emerged as a, you know, a stronger theme and in every city. You know, there was a lot of questioning of us.

00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:59.000
And so I kind of curious about how that reputational, I guess, renovation reimagine ation, how, how Detroit, in terms of having done that extremely well, what would you suggest to us.

00:59:59.000 --> 01:00:07.000
Because this is kind of a, you know, it's a very difficult reputational damage to repair it particularly at this moment.

01:00:07.000 --> 01:00:26.000
And you have obviously, I mean, I think the the racial ratios are almost directly inverted between Detroit and Portland and and so are there lessons that you think that you know that could that we could learn from you.

01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:38.000
Yeah. Damn, I, I don't know if you want to go first. I will attempt that, but I will attempt it by adding a little bit more to my history day but try to do it quickly.

01:00:38.000 --> 01:00:43.000
When I arrived in 1997 98.

01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:47.000
And I would be here with us here and I heard.

01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:59.000
I was living in the city I was, and I've had people in the city say why would you be living in the city, why would you be here, and the, they were.

01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:20.000
What I noticed was that it gets back to the point of self. How you self perceive yourself, how you perceive yourself, and that what many people would say at that time is that the fighters were their own worst enemy we were beating up ourselves about it

01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:35.000
then you amplify that with the national media, so there was a shift that occurred, I would say around 2000 2001, where suddenly businesses would start that actually had Detroit in the name, and that would never happen.

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:56.000
And it would begin so you have like pure Detroit, made in Detroit, things like this are happening in some a couple of visits weren't even in the city, but they were still calling it, people began to change their own perception there became a because it

01:01:56.000 --> 01:02:06.000
didn't matter how you marketed the city, if when people come to visit and they hear, residents and folks speaking negatively about it didn't matter what was said.

01:02:06.000 --> 01:02:23.000
And so it really has to do with the ground right but it always do the people on the ground, how they and so it may not be perfect in the world around them, but if they see that the folks in leadership and folks in community organizations are working with

01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:41.000
them, that that changes perception and they're more, they became this sort of almost free fevers, no one can sit there, the whole business Detroit vs everyone started then came, you know, that there was literally about, we can withstand what the outside

01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:59.000
will send us, and it so I'm rambling there but I do believe it has it for that perception to change. It's more than how city markets itself it's more than how the downtown with market itself, it really are is asked to do with the people that are there.

01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:02.000
Yeah, so the confidence building.

01:03:02.000 --> 01:03:09.000
What would you add to that I'm sure there's, you got very, very different perspective, perhaps, Yeah.

01:03:09.000 --> 01:03:14.000
So I would just say that,

01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:26.000
man. Over the decades. If not, centuries, you know, Detroit has had so many mixed narratives assigned to its place.

01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:45.000
And in many cases, all of them were right and all of them are wrong at the same time. And they contradict one another, because they're based off of different, different people's perspectives and opinions and if they were if they were part of the flight

01:03:45.000 --> 01:04:03.000
that left the city, or if they were the population that stayed, or if it was the outside view looking at everything that every single one of these narratives and perspectives on about these opinions on the city.

01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:11.000
couldn't be seen as right from the viewer. And so then how do you bring all of those things together.

01:04:11.000 --> 01:04:25.000
Those vastly contradictory perceptions forward to then sort of shape how the city moves forward has been just extremely challenging but full of opportunities.

01:04:25.000 --> 01:04:28.000
Over the past 10 years.

01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:49.000
Not to be helped, ever by national media is someone who can either rise up and elevate messages or also move these things forward in potential ways that contradict or hurt the work being done on the ground in the city.

01:04:49.000 --> 01:04:54.000
It can be extremely, extremely damaging.

01:04:54.000 --> 01:05:11.000
So it's interesting to be to be working through all of those different lenses and trying to move urban design initiatives forward, because there is the national media media that can help beget economic and business development for a city that strongly

01:05:11.000 --> 01:05:13.000
needs tax revenue.

01:05:13.000 --> 01:05:28.000
And then there is the on the ground conversations a discourse about race and equity, and how do we move the city together forward and dealing with those perspectives, and it can be quite complicated.

01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:35.000
So, working within all of that is how we try to design spaces and have conversations about what the future needs to be.

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:52.000
I have to add quickly that ran if you don't mind me when you said what you just said, Melissa Thank you. The national media has been, you know it's it's changed that she's illustrated, but the international media has actually been very positive on the

01:05:52.000 --> 01:06:12.000
city for for at least 20 years and witnessing people coming from out of that, I would think, I think, is what helped the personal reflection of many Detroiters is seeing people coming from Japan from, from Scandinavia from all over to see the self reliance

01:06:12.000 --> 01:06:28.000
and some of it with fictional, as well as, as, as, Melissa was saying it's some of the, what they were coming to see wasn't really it was happening but maybe not to the degree that they thought, but it helped to build the confidence of people that were

01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:46.000
here that we're truly trying to do urban agriculture and do things that perhaps you don't normally see in cities and other cities with national cities would look and say, why would you do a food system development in a city, when, when they should be

01:06:46.000 --> 01:06:54.000
dense and the food stuff should be on the outside and international cities were coming in saying, Wait a minute, there's something to this that we can learn from.

01:06:54.000 --> 01:07:10.000
And so it, I think that international media truly to that sort of self awareness change. I want to check in with the panelists. Are you okay with going a little long.

01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:25.000
As long as the audience is okay with it. Okay. All right, good yeah cuz I think we can have a. I think this discussion, it's the the longer I want to get to a couple of the questions that have come in and I'm going to kind of link, two of them together.

01:07:25.000 --> 01:07:31.000
So obviously bedrock has been a huge, huge, you know influence on on the course of Detroit.

01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:35.000
And, you know, done exemplary job.

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:53.000
But there's kind of two questions that have come up one is has this work in downtown caused gentrification. And how have you, you know mitigated that or not is that you know is that Genie out of the bottle and raging as it was in Portland.

01:07:53.000 --> 01:08:07.000
And then, and then also I want to ask is if bedrock as a single entity. Is there any bad side to having that much influence in a private company.

01:08:07.000 --> 01:08:09.000
Yeah, so excellent questions.

01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:14.000
Also, questions that we get.

01:08:14.000 --> 01:08:18.000
Most repeated in all audiences.

01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:28.000
Because it is, sort of, there is power in acquiring that much property.

01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:30.000
Within a singular city.

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:34.000
And with that power can come either.

01:08:34.000 --> 01:08:42.000
great things that happen for all the people that live work and play there are things that can fold really badly.

01:08:42.000 --> 01:08:47.000
And we've done both as a company.

01:08:47.000 --> 01:09:07.000
We have done both we've done some things very very well that have reached, we've set up affordable housing strategies within our portfolio we've continued to support affordable housing across city we've improved public spaces with free activities geared

01:09:07.000 --> 01:09:08.000
towards everyone.

01:09:08.000 --> 01:09:18.000
We have done some things now not as well, which is like

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:30.000
creating a strategic framework for our ground floor businesses, and how we bring them online to be to hit different target audiences and what they can afford.

01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:35.000
And so we have

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:54.000
definitely helped increase the amount of people who are coming downtown and spending money, but probably not to the diversity of financial means that we should have starting out and you're one, but this is something in which we're working on now going

01:09:54.000 --> 01:10:08.000
which is balancing out the places where people can buy things, or go to restaurants to create opportunities for anyone to come downtown and feel welcome there.

01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:11.000
So,

01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:36.000
to the second part of the question, the power that comes with that, it's illustrated by the sort of leasing strategy, of which we move things forward when we have that large of portfolio with ground floor businesses that need to be filled the ways in

01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:42.000
which we lease going forward will have big impacts on the city.

01:10:42.000 --> 01:10:51.000
That could drive powerfully in one direction or another unless we offer that, you know, sort of diversity of options.

01:10:51.000 --> 01:11:04.000
Same goes with all of our pillars of development, whether it's ground floor tenants whether it's the type of housing that we're working on, and the price points.

01:11:04.000 --> 01:11:23.000
The design aspects, the sort of finished levels. What we're offering in terms of our housing portfolio needs to be diversified so that we're building that environment, by which anyone throughout whatever financial means they have has options in which

01:11:23.000 --> 01:11:29.000
to live within those areas and activate that downtown in different ways.

01:11:29.000 --> 01:11:47.000
So, we have, we know the power that comes with this. And I will say, the power that comes with this keeps us up at night as it should, because this is the ability to really impact the city and move it forward.

01:11:47.000 --> 01:11:52.000
Now with that being said, we've also done a lot of things outside of the CBD.

01:11:52.000 --> 01:12:09.000
So have contributed significant amounts of dollars to philanthropic community organizations, and others, beyond the central business district in order to help improve within the neighborhoods.

01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:27.000
And some of those efforts are up and, you know, Dan's neck of the woods in the northern part of Detroit, because there is, there needs to be a complimentary relationship between the neighborhoods and the downtown in any city, right, not just Detroit.

01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:42.000
I ran into I can give an outside perspective to that answer real quick. I would say what what distinguishes what they're doing and I would maybe not every other developer but other developers, and real estate is that they have a long term vision and Melissa

01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:55.000
sort of made that very clear, but to say it more crassly they're not just buying developing and selling. They can do the things that Melissa saying is because they're buying and developing and then there, then there still there, and they can now they

01:12:55.000 --> 01:13:07.000
they can pivot, as she showed because they're still owners, they're still able to work with what they have they're not just sort of filing then getting out.

01:13:07.000 --> 01:13:27.000
So, it is a very different strategy the way they've been working and willingness to pivot and work with versus just being an isolated entity is, I do believe at least far area very unique

01:13:27.000 --> 01:13:32.000
from you if you could

01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:38.000
point to what you think are the greatest hurdles to Portland's come back at this point.

01:13:38.000 --> 01:13:46.000
I mean you're a you're a native you you know you work as a planner. You've been in the center of a lot of discussions.

01:13:46.000 --> 01:13:53.000
And what do you think is, is, is that we really need to fix in order to fix ourselves.

01:13:53.000 --> 01:14:04.000
Well, I would say, three things. One, leadership, we talked about this all the time, Many of the big things that we did over the period that I ripped through so quickly.

01:14:04.000 --> 01:14:12.000
You know, it came with people who were if not bringing the vision. They understood its value and we're willing to make the case for it.

01:14:12.000 --> 01:14:23.000
We were lucky to receive huge federal match for some of those big investments that's not hasn't been there in the last 10 years maybe it will be in the next few not holding my breath.

01:14:23.000 --> 01:14:27.000
But, you know, I would say leadership is certainly one of them.

01:14:27.000 --> 01:14:39.000
I would say, lack of cohesion is another. There's probably 10 to 15 different ideas about what our actual problem is, is it.

01:14:39.000 --> 01:14:44.000
How soullessness, is it protests, is it racism.

01:14:44.000 --> 01:15:00.000
We're not in agreement about that and I think that there's a number of issues of mistrust between communities that probably need to be pushing if not in the same direction and, you know, at least the same spectrum of the, the direction and and i don't

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:13.000
i don't know that that's happening and then the last thing is, is, I do think that there's probably a lack of trust and understanding relative to the success, you know, the success, which I think doesn't deserve quotes but in, you know, the fact that

01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:25.000
we don't all agree what what was successful and what wasn't over the past 40 years, makes it really hard for us to think about what are the tools that we know how to use that we need to use again.

01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:30.000
What are the things that we didn't do so well that we can do differently in the future.

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:34.000
I think there are a number of institutions.

01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:47.000
That should be leaders in that and have the capacity to be leaders in that, but who are not trusted by all of the stakeholders and community members that that need to be on board and will be part of these conversations.

01:15:47.000 --> 01:16:08.000
So, the biggest threat that I see is that we look at what we've done over the last 30 3040 years and we think we'll look at all the negative outcomes of that, and we aren't able to make the adjustments necessary to move forward together, and challenge

01:16:08.000 --> 01:16:17.000
I see it a big difference between the two cities is, you know, Portland. In the time of its revival.

01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:28.000
You know, it was primarily local developers local property owners, it was local capital, or at least had a, you know the the capital was anchored locally.

01:16:28.000 --> 01:16:36.000
And we've seen a phenomenal shift in owner ownership in downtown to trance geographic entities.

01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:50.000
You know that really you know there's, you know somebody in San Francisco or in New York who's staring at a spreadsheet, and they're not here, and in the room in terms of, you know, trying to you know make decisions about, you know, what can be done on

01:16:50.000 --> 01:17:07.000
the ground. You know it's a spreadsheet attitude and and you know again because you have this experience in being in a lot of these rooms in which decisions are being made and the but the money that to make them as being this comes from elsewhere.

01:17:07.000 --> 01:17:16.000
Do you have any insights into how we might be able to work with that situation.

01:17:16.000 --> 01:17:40.000
I think I'm really proud to say no. And I think it would be foolish to say that we know anything until the covert things over how people come back to the workplace, how people come back to the central city as consumers as tenants, or don't is going to

01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:48.000
either confirm and double down on the narrative that we've developed, or to blow it up.

01:17:48.000 --> 01:17:58.000
And I think, you know, I can't remember I wish I could give them credit somebody last week, said was Nicholas Kristof don't bet against Portland.

01:17:58.000 --> 01:18:12.000
And we'll see we've never been through a pandemic in a series of, you know, a year full of protests and broken windows in my lifetime. But I'd like to think he's right.

01:18:12.000 --> 01:18:13.000
Yeah, yeah.

01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:17.000
I'm Melissa is question for you.

01:18:17.000 --> 01:18:19.000
I'm going to frame a slightly different way.

01:18:19.000 --> 01:18:31.000
You know, the question is can you explain in some detail that mechanisms available to bedrock to do affordable retail space, and I'd like to ask a really specific question.

01:18:31.000 --> 01:18:44.000
How far. This bed is bedrock willing to go under market on on retail, you know spaces in order to diversify, you know the the urban experience.

01:18:44.000 --> 01:18:58.000
Um, well that sounds like a spreadsheet question. So I'm going to answer a series of strategies that we've set up. Instead of saying we're willing to go at a 2% ROI Right.

01:18:58.000 --> 01:19:03.000
That's not my language, I can speak it, but I'd rather talk about.

01:19:03.000 --> 01:19:26.000
we have set up a series of strategies that includes incubating black owned businesses and small Detroit on businesses through a series of nonprofits like the Boys and Girls Club, that has a storefront in our downtown on Woodward Avenue which is equivalent

01:19:26.000 --> 01:19:33.000
to us like the Magnificent Mile of Chicago, or one day will be that.

01:19:33.000 --> 01:19:48.000
But we've given a small not Detroit based nonprofit storefront down there by which they nurture and grow black owned businesses through fashion and retail within that space.

01:19:48.000 --> 01:20:12.000
And then what we have done is through our series of either that or pop ups done, local businesses that are women owned or bipartisan businesses set them up for pop ups, help them build clientele and the customer base and then tried to move them into permanent

01:20:12.000 --> 01:20:26.000
spaces. Following that, we've also done that with our street activations through our winter markets and summer markets where we have small little pop up spaces within the bigger public spaces that are

01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:43.000
smaller market buildings that we then allow help support those smaller businesses through those types of space and what we're trying to do is create an ecosystem that basically moves from one place to another to another.

01:20:43.000 --> 01:20:53.000
We've also been working with connecting some of these businesses and what their wares with larger networks within.

01:20:53.000 --> 01:21:12.000
So for example, we own the hotel of Shinola hotel we also own a Marriott and we've started to bring some of our small business Where's into the spaces, so that that's part of the experiences within these hotels and so what comes, you know the back to

01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:15.000
the power of the portfolio.

01:21:15.000 --> 01:21:31.000
Is that because we own and manage and develop multiple pillars or different types of real estate is that we can start to move things around to help support some of those businesses growing.

01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:34.000
So a lot of different strategies.

01:21:34.000 --> 01:21:49.000
In order to do that, and we've been doing them for years, so you can figure out how, you know, back to the spreadsheet and what that percentage is, how many years, we're willing to support this.

01:21:49.000 --> 01:21:52.000
We're willing to support it for a long time.

01:21:52.000 --> 01:22:06.000
Right, thank you know and I'm curious in Broadway cord or since that, you know, in terms of the pre didn't print pre pandemic, thinking about it i mean i'm sure all bets are off kind of now.

01:22:06.000 --> 01:22:09.000
How.

01:22:09.000 --> 01:22:23.000
What's the plan for manifesting this diversity of experiences at an urban level similar sort of, you know, subsidizing and nurturing spaces. What will it look like.

01:22:23.000 --> 01:22:36.000
Yeah, I think I think it is similar to the subsidizing and nurturing there's been conversation about progress report and taking responsibility for a certain amount of ground floor that could be used as incubator space and help to be turned over.

01:22:36.000 --> 01:22:46.000
And with, you know, we weren't involved in negotiating the CVA so I don't want to commit to getting any details right but there's also a discussion of those who don't know what the community benefits agreement.

01:22:46.000 --> 01:22:47.000
Yeah.

01:22:47.000 --> 01:22:58.000
The. There's also been some conversation about whether there are community organizations that could take responsibility for space and then they could manage it to the benefit of their, their community members.

01:22:58.000 --> 01:23:01.000
So that's an interesting idea.

01:23:01.000 --> 01:23:20.000
And I think those are the two main strategies, but maybe more important than both of those is a commitment to ongoing deep engagement of community organizations and individuals from a diverse range of life perspectives and income perspectives and racial

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:35.000
and ethnic perspectives, so that we're not just making a plan and then, you know, trust us, but that there's opportunities to course correct and refine strategies or if the opportunities in the future don't look like the opportunities we planned for,

01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:40.000
you know, how does that change the commitments that we've made or the aspirations that we've set for ourselves.

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:51.000
I will say I don't know that I have been hearing a lot of, you know, change in the vision. As a result of the pandemic year. The last year.

01:23:51.000 --> 01:23:54.000
One of the nice things about trying to plan.

01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:59.000
14 downtown acres is that you already know it's going to take a long time and.

01:23:59.000 --> 01:24:12.000
So, this one year wasn't about to be a catalytic period in that 20 year build out of that site, yeah hopefully those.

01:24:12.000 --> 01:24:19.000
I, you know, since our audience is primarily architecture students and community members.

01:24:19.000 --> 01:24:39.000
Kind of like to wind up our discussion with some thinking about the role that educational institutions and and architecture schools in particular, you know can play I mean, Dan, you know your work has been extraordinary I mean in terms of, you know, the

01:24:39.000 --> 01:24:47.000
activation of spaces and and you know really integrating students into real world experiences.

01:24:47.000 --> 01:25:03.000
And I kind of like to, you know, for you to reflect on in terms of these comeback stories, what role, you know, that is play and I'd be curious to hear Melissa's view on that too because I know you two have worked closely and then Nolan I would really

01:25:03.000 --> 01:25:12.000
love to hear what you think is working and what maybe isn't working about educational involvement in Portland.

01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:19.000
Thank you, Randy actually my tie back into one of the questions that was in that asked about the.

01:25:19.000 --> 01:25:37.000
If there were any uprisings in Detroit as well because I'm going to say that because the word that was used in the question said riots, and as an academic institution, we try to make sure across the board that being careful of what words are used because

01:25:37.000 --> 01:25:49.000
the words that are used influence how we think and how we act. And if you noticed in the presentation I gave I talked about the rebellions in 1967 which most people would say were riots.

01:25:49.000 --> 01:25:54.000
So Riot makes it sound like senseless acts of violence.

01:25:54.000 --> 01:26:06.000
What a rebellion may begin to say is perhaps there's no other recourse and people are so frustrated that they are now rebalance, and this is what's happening.

01:26:06.000 --> 01:26:26.000
This is what's the word Riot gets put out, and it begins to sort of minimize the things that lead up to the rebellion. And so, as an academic institution with our students, we constantly work at, making sure the words we use when we talk about the city

01:26:26.000 --> 01:26:44.000
with community members we talked about open space, not vacant land. We had a, you know, my square miles upon square miles of open space, not vacant land in that and I said I would say that cities would kill to have the amount of open space we have now

01:26:44.000 --> 01:26:58.000
how do we utilize that in a way that's positive and we as an academic institution can play a role in that, when I was director of the design center I do want to add, real quick, I'm actually dean of the school now I have, I don't wanna, I don't want to

01:26:58.000 --> 01:27:08.000
I don't want to take away from the executive director of the design center directors of the design center now, we started an open space plan for the entire city of Detroit.

01:27:08.000 --> 01:27:26.000
That plan is what led to Detroit works is what led to then, Detroit future city, and that that was done with faculty, students across the entire working with community across the entire city.

01:27:26.000 --> 01:27:46.000
So, everything from doing a good Zeebo in the community, doing a plan for the open space across the city that became it wasn't a plan that became utilized but inspired people to think about what was possible and perhaps only thinking about the open space

01:27:46.000 --> 01:28:01.000
was a little short sighted we need to think, as I mentioned, population growth and land use was not it was an issue but not the only issue so we need to be more holistic that's what that work was able to show, and it was safer to do it in the academic

01:28:01.000 --> 01:28:16.000
institution first with communities, and then it was done with the city government was a part of the study and so on. And then, working with, we work, the University component of the Detroit works project.

01:28:16.000 --> 01:28:35.000
So, the University committed time of us to be a part of that process, so it's everything from a small intervention to large city wide processes that students are engaged with their part of the process they were in working in community meetings across

01:28:35.000 --> 01:28:41.000
the city, working, where that was very long I apologize for making that answer so long.

01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:42.000
But I'll stop there.

01:28:42.000 --> 01:28:45.000
Okay, thank you.

01:28:45.000 --> 01:28:48.000
Well, I can make them on short,

01:28:48.000 --> 01:29:04.000
we as a company, sponsor a lot of academic explorations because academia tends to be decades ahead of where the professional experiences as it relates.

01:29:04.000 --> 01:29:22.000
One example is collaborative multidisciplinary efforts happened way earlier and academic institutions especially within the realm of architecture, urban design, so forth, decades earlier than where the professional state of real estate, real estate has

01:29:22.000 --> 01:29:28.000
has gotten to even now is just beginning to be more collaborative in nature.

01:29:28.000 --> 01:29:47.000
And so we try to stay close to what is happening within the universities, not just in terms of the ways in which they're thinking through things especially at an architectural school, and the way in which they're creating designed products, but the processes

01:29:47.000 --> 01:29:55.000
by which they're using it and how that can be applied to the professional state so

01:29:55.000 --> 01:30:04.000
deliberate deliberate collaboration with universities at all times to achieve that, because we can't move that quickly.

01:30:04.000 --> 01:30:06.000
It takes a long time to evolve.

01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:08.000
Yeah.

01:30:08.000 --> 01:30:25.000
Nolan, Your thoughts. Yeah, I'll be brief and just note that I think I've been amazed at some of the contributions from students and faculty at our local universities particularly PSU and planning studios and real estate studios and analysis of a site

01:30:25.000 --> 01:30:39.000
or a district or a corridor. And I should say, transportation, folks as well, that the city has been, I think, warm and welcoming to a lot of the ideas that have emerged out of academia.

01:30:39.000 --> 01:30:48.000
And of course we could do more I think that we could probably have a stronger link of, you know, some, some funding that's available to catalyze a big idea.

01:30:48.000 --> 01:30:56.000
In addition to some of those that have come out of student student and faculty work.

01:30:56.000 --> 01:31:16.000
But I you know I think I would also just say this, this moment is is unique, the whole pandemic aspect of it. And so, you know, adding some fuel to what we've been doing is great, and I can't remember if I said this explicitly about things I envy about

01:31:16.000 --> 01:31:29.000
Detroit, but I think when you have room, and you have, you know, the declining population and some of those things. There is a willingness to look at a wild idea and say, let's give it a shot.

01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:39.000
Whether that be the funder or the city or the neighborhood. And, you know, one of the downsides of, you know, 40 years of moving in the right direction.

01:31:39.000 --> 01:31:48.000
Is that I do think, whether it be the neighborhood association or others, there's a little bit of caution to that big idea, the wild idea.

01:31:48.000 --> 01:32:00.000
There's some things that we used to do that were crazy and people said yeah let's give it a shot and now there are some things we're doing that Detroit's probably doing and Seattle and Denver doing and, and we have Whoa, hit the brakes.

01:32:00.000 --> 01:32:18.000
This is a little radical. So my hope is that the damage that we've seen during coven, and through the protests will loosen people up and I think it already has been where, where people are saying hey let's let's use the streets differently and rewrite

01:32:18.000 --> 01:32:35.000
the rules about what's allowable in the street and what streets are for. So, I think, educational and design activism can certainly deserve a boost and we might have just the opportunity to give it one.

01:32:35.000 --> 01:32:50.000
Before we wind up, because we're now almost 20 minutes over any questions that you have of each other.

01:32:50.000 --> 01:33:04.000
I mean, there was a question in the chat that I'm going to paraphrase because I'm not supposed to be digging into it and yet I couldn't stop myself, which was are there.

01:33:04.000 --> 01:33:14.000
Could we set up a collaborative between Portland, that's more beyond this evening and Detroit, that moves these things forward to share strategies.

01:33:14.000 --> 01:33:33.000
There was an initiative called glue set up by the amazing amazingly intelligent woman, it was called Great Lakes urban exchange, and it was meant to set up an exchange of ideas, planning, urban design and economic strategies across the cities around the

01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:36.000
Great Lakes that were post industrial cities.

01:33:36.000 --> 01:33:54.000
And it was very specific to a time and very specific to post industrial geographies, but it worked really well for about five years, I do wonder if we're in a place and time right now where it's less about geographies and more about sort of these racial

01:33:54.000 --> 01:33:59.000
and equity and urban design issues if there needs to be an exchange setup.

01:33:59.000 --> 01:34:09.000
And so I guess my question for Nolan and everyone else here is would you guys be willing to do that. Beyond Today, because I think Dan and I would be.

01:34:09.000 --> 01:34:16.000
We're always happy to try to figure out ideas that work could work in our city and vice versa.

01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:27.000
I love it. And I think one of the other things that we sometimes do in Berlin is we we look at our own situation and we imagine that were the only one trying to solve some of these problems.

01:34:27.000 --> 01:34:36.000
And I don't mean that of us in the professional community since you know we were pulling, case studies and precedents and our own experience from all over the place.

01:34:36.000 --> 01:34:46.000
But I do think having the voices of someone who's struggling with a similar challenge or who's succeeding it, you know, working on something similar in another city bringing them in like we have done today.

01:34:46.000 --> 01:34:51.000
I think gets the energy going it enlarges the sense of possibility.

01:34:51.000 --> 01:34:55.000
And, and I think it's super helpful.

01:34:55.000 --> 01:34:56.000
Great.

01:34:56.000 --> 01:35:11.000
I'm sorry, go ahead. No, No, I was just gonna. Yes, to what Melissa said for sure, but even when oftentimes, this is when I, when I'm an educator, I, because I've been more of a practitioner than it's only been the last two years that I've been solely

01:35:11.000 --> 01:35:24.000
an educator, but when I'm an educator and talking with the students I oftentimes say what is perceived as success from one perspective may be perceived as a failure from someone else's perspective.

01:35:24.000 --> 01:35:37.000
And so, having this kind of collaboration in two cities that are have some errors, but also differences is very helpful. Only collaborating with folks that are like you end up creating the same thing over and over again.

01:35:37.000 --> 01:35:48.000
So having a variety of people but having a variety of of cities in the collaboration, I feel would help us say oh yeah we may be successful there but if we turn this way.

01:35:48.000 --> 01:36:06.000
Whoops. We're not so successful, and I, that would be incredibly helpful for us, and and vice versa, for sure. Yeah, great note to end on. Um, I'm going to turn it back to Patti, and thanks for for this great discussion I hope we can continue it because

01:36:06.000 --> 01:36:10.000
I think we could go on for a long time.

01:36:10.000 --> 01:36:20.000
i i'd second that as well I hope we can continue with it and the idea of the, of the collaboration just mentioned, I think is is a very worthwhile outcome.

01:36:20.000 --> 01:36:37.000
So thank you so much Melissa and Dawn. Nolan and Randy. There's some great observations made this evening and I you know I think this is exactly the purpose of the design collaborative to reach beyond conventional wisdom, and to begin to find ideas which

01:36:37.000 --> 01:37:02.000
we can, we can apply. So, thank you so much for listening today everyone. Please join us again next Friday for for conversation on timber flows will speakers will be familiar.

01:37:02.000 --> 01:37:13.000
with Laila cyn who's the assistant professor of architecture at PSU and a colleague and putting in this process together. So thank you all for attending.

01:37:13.000 --> 01:37:28.000
And let's keep those good ideas flowing. Thank you pick a song everybody you all. Great to see you then.

01:37:28.000 --> 01:37:34.000
Thank you so much, Melissa, great. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Hi little one.

01:37:34.000 --> 01:38:04.000
I know that was so sweet. Yes. Great. Yeah, really nice to meet you, Melissa. Yeah, it was nice to meet you in person.