What an unforgettable week with the Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting! As always, it was great getting together and catching up with friends and making new connections, but this conference edition was extra special because it took place in San Francisco. It brings me tremendous joy to see our city back and better than ever, and it was a privilege to share what makes SF so exceptional with ULI members from across the continent.
I'm grateful to Miles Garber for inviting me to host the Urban Revitalization Council's tour of Frontier Tower as the final stop on their product council day. We welcomed 108 real estate leaders from across North America for an afternoon exploring innovative approaches to urban revitalization and new strategies for activating vacant downtown office space.
The 1908 building, which reopened as Frontier Tower in April 2025, is now home to 500+ members across frontier tech, longevity research, AI, crypto, robotics, and other disciplines. Each of the tower's 16 floors has its own dedicated theme, and the building operates on a model of community-led, decentralized governance - an interesting case study in how historic adaptive reuse can create vertical innovation ecosystems in urban cores. My relationship to the building is unique in that I was elected to chair the community's Citizenship Committee, so I was fortunate to have the opportunity to share my experience and takeaways with URC.
Many thanks to Devinder Sodhi, Laurence Ion, and Zan Lowe-Skillern for joining us for a thoughtful panel discussion on the intersection of frontier technology, community, and urban spaces. We were also fortunate to hear from Lesya Hendrix, CEO of Spacer Robotics, who shared her company's journey building construction robots for Earth and beyond. Special thanks to Colin Lowenberg, founder of Dabl Club, for his excellent event coordination, and to Vitaly and Xenia Bulatov for showcasing their UFB - Ultimate Fighting Bots at our Robot Reception.
To my ULI community, the innovators who shared their work, and everyone who joined us - thank you for an invigorating afternoon. San Francisco continues to demonstrate why it remains at the forefront of urban reinvention, and I'm excited to continue these conversations about the future of our cities.
📸 : Mona Lovgreen
ULI San Francisco #ULIFallMeeting #SanFrancisco #CRE
