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Celebrate DC's startups and the neighborhoods they call home

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YOU ARE INVITED
Tech in the City:
Startup Communities in Startup Places
Washington, DC is one of the best places in the country for tech startups, and the city’s great neighborhoods are helping make that possible.

Join us for a panel discussion and reception about the intersection of smart growth development and DC’s startup community. Weigh in about how startups are changing DC’s real estate, and how the city can support the startup community through better development.

Leading the conversation will be Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs; Harriet Tregoning, Director of the DC Office of Planning; and Ilana Preuss, Vice President and Chief of Staff of Smart Growth America.
Thursday, April 18, 2013 | 7:00-9:00 PM
iStrategyLabs, 1630 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC, 7th floor
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(Webinar) Financing Transit-Oriented Development: How to use the TIFIA program to finance TOD infrastructure projects

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Thank you to everyone who joined LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors yesterday for an online presentation about using the recently modified federal loan program, Transportation Innovative Financing Infrastructure Act (TIFIA) to finance TOD projects. Presenters: Duane Callender, Director of the TIFIA Office at the USDOT Kevin DeGood, Deputy Director of Policy, Transportation for … Continued

LOCUS

What the BUILD Act could build: Hope Tree Nursery in Providence, RI

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Image courtesy Groundwork Providence

In Providence, Rhode Island, on the site of a former factory, an urban nursery is helping make the whole city more green.

Hope Tree Nursery is the first financially self-sustaining nursery constructed on a brownfield in the United States. The site was once home the Rau Fastener Company on Sprague Street, southwest of Downtown Providence.Years of producing metal fasteners left the site contaminated with heavy metals and today, Sprague Street is part of an economically distressed community lacking green space. Known as a “legacy city,” the area is characterized by the vestiges of a past, productive era.

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Advocating for great places: Smart Growth America and coalition partners visit Capitol Hill

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Federal decisions about development, infrastructure and transportation impact communities across the country, and no one has a better understanding of how those decisions play out than the members of Smart Growth America’s national coalition.

Coalition members from across the country came together last week in Washington, DC to ask members of Congress to support the federal programs that are helping communities across the country achieve their economic development goals.

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Smart growth in the Smoky Mountains – Graham County, NC to host strategy workshops

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Photo via Graham County Chamber of Information.

Tucked in a corner of the Smoky Mountains, Graham County, North Carolina is a rural community known for it’s abundant natural beauty, windy mountain roads, local produce and artisans. As county residents look toward the future of their community, Smart Growth America will assist Graham County in how to utilize their existing assets to ensure a healthy, economically productive place in which to live, work and play.

On April 2 and 3, 2013, Graham County officials and local residents will meet with representatives from Smart Growth America as part of a free, grant-funded technical assistance program. The workshops aim to find innovative strategies for improving the county’s safety, health and economy through the development of a resident led action plan for future growth.

Technical assistance

Announcing Executive Education Course on Walkable Urban Places

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For more than 50 years, the dominant development model in the United States has been the familiar ‘driveable suburban’ approach. Today however, a structural shift is underway in the real estate market as demand increases for walkable urban development – and the DC region is leading the way.

Now, LOCUS, in collaboration with the George Washington University School of Business and ULI Washington, is proud to announce a five-day executive education course this summer aimed at providing real estate professionals the tools they need to take advantage of this of this market transformation. The course, which will be held from June 10th to 14th in Washington DC, features an impressive line up of developers, elected officials, place managers and others at the forefront of transforming Washington D.C. into the nation’s leading market for walkable urban development.

LOCUS

Partnership in the News: Blueprint Binghamton launches community planning efforts

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A local Binghamton resident’s idea for community improvement. Photo courtesty Blueprint Binghamton

Over the past 60 years, the city of Binghamton, New York gradually lost residents due to a shrinking industrial economy, eventually falling to about half its population from 1950. Unemployment rates above the national average and education and income levels below national averages present Binghamton with many challenges. However, a comprehensive plan for the region, supported by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is an opportunity to build upon Binghamton’s valuable community assets and existing infrastructure.

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What the BUILD Act could build: Harrison Commons in New Jersey

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Harrison Commons in Harrison, NJ.

The redevelopment of Harrison, NJ’s waterfront from abandoned industrial buildings into a viable mixed-use development seemed inconceivable only a few years ago.

Strategically located along several rail lines, on the Passaic River and only a few miles from New York City, Harrison once boomed with factories and manufacturing in the first half of the 20th century. In 1912, President William Howard Taft nicknamed Harrison the “Beehive of Industry.”

The town still keeps Taft’s catchphrase as it’s motto, but much of the manufacturers that once called Harrison home have long since closed their doors, leaving behind abandoned factories and large swaths of vacant – and in some places contaminated, land.

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Why today is the day to speak out for the BUILD Act

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Every day is a good day to clean up a brownfield.

Cleaning up brownfields benefits everyone – parents, professionals, business owners, local leaders and more.

Land that was once contaminated and abandoned can be transformed into parks, community centers, concert venues or any number of other ideas. There’s never a bad day to start these projects.

Today in particular is special, though.

Smart Growth America is on Capitol Hill today, along with our national coalition of allied non-profits. We’re there in person to ask Congress to support the BUILD Act.

Add your voice to our call for action: tell your senators to support the BUILD Act.

In our meetings today, we’ll be talking about places like Harrison, NJ, which is turning an abandoned industrial area into a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood served by transit.

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