Real estate industry legend Daniel Rose has committed $5 million to the creation of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership. ULI is a global education and research organization dedicated to responsible land use. The announcement was made recently during the Institutes's Spring Council Forum in Dallas.
The mission of the ULI Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership is to empower leaders in the public sector to envision, build and sustain successful 21st century communities by providing access to information, best practices, peer networks and other resources to foster creative, efficient and sustainable land use practices.
Rose's gift is among the largest individual contributions ever made to the Institute. He is chairman of New York City-based Rose Associates, Inc.
"Success for large-scale developments invariably reflects effective working relationships between the public and private sectors," Rose said.
The guiding principles of the center will be 1) leadership in a regional context; 2) integrated problem solving; 3) public/private collaboration; and 4) experiential and peer-to-peer learning.
The center will undertake three programs: 1) the Daniel Rose Fellowship program; 2) workshops for public officials on sustainable development; and 3) public-private forums on land use issues; with the fellowship serving as the flagship program of the center. The purpose of the fellowship will be to provide city leaders with the information, insights, peer-to-peer learning, best practices and experience they need to build and sustain their cities.

The fellowship will incorporate three over-arching themes: real estate finance and development; the interdependencies and respective roles of the public and private sectors; and the roles and importance of the public realm, its relationship to private property, and how the public sector can use the public realm as leverage to create viable communities.

ULI Chairman Todd Mansfield said the center will help greatly in expanding ULI's
public sector membership, which he views as key to the Institute's lasting
success in building consensus around the economic, environmental and social challenges faced by urban areas. "Dan's extraordinary generosity will help ULI make a positive difference in community building around the globe. I have high hopes for the potential of the ULI Daniel Rose Center to attract public leaders who will apply this learning experience to create communities that are more livable, and, as a result, more sustainable," Mansfield said. "The center epitomizes ULI at its best - a source of knowledge and information to be shared among those who influence and shape the built environment."

Richard Rosan, president, ULI Worldwide, said the ULI Daniel Rose Center will offer an excellent opportunity for the participants to benefit from global best practices. "As our world becomes more urbanized, cities around the globe are struggling with many of the same issues -- managing growth, responding to demographic shifts, building enough affordable housing, providing adequate transportation options, and in general, finding the best way to rebuild, restore and renew our urban areas. This center will enable key decision makers to make well-informed choices regarding pressing urban issues. We are thrilled with Dan's contribution. The center is a long-held dream of ULI that is now becoming a reality."

The ULI Daniel Rose Fellowship will bring together high-level agency officials from a small group of select cities with top experts and development industry leaders to learn about real estate development and finance, land use concepts and best practices. These city leaders will be able to draw upon the knowledge and expertise of the experts and industry leaders to solve actual problems faced by their cities. Each fellowship, which will last one year, will be a prestigious honor, providing the highest quality learning experience for those who receive it.

According to Rose, the center will facilitate public leadership in land use "by bringing competent, honorable and knowledgeable" participants together from the public and private sector. "Each has much to learn from the other. The more knowledgeable and better trained people are on both sides of the table, the more effective they (the working relationships) are. The most successful projects invariably reflect those relationships," he said.

The time is right for the establishment of the center, Rose said, because he believes the built environment is shifting toward more large-scale projects involving large-scale infrastructure, which will necessitate much more interaction between leading public officials and the private sector. "It is the right time, and I am convinced that the Urban Land Institute, with its effective outreach both nationally and internationally, is the right vehicle. It is the right place, the right people and the right concepts, all forming a mutually reinforcing setting."

The Urban Land Institute (www.uli.org) is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has more than 40,000 members representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.