Press Release – WASHINGTON (November 22, 2016) — The Urban Land Institute has received a grant totaling $250,000 from the Colorado Health Foundation to support a range of institute efforts to promote building for health and wellness through its Building Healthy Places initiative. The initiative leverages the power of ULI’s global networks to shape projects and places in ways that improve the health of people and communities. The new grant builds on generous support provided by the Colorado Health Foundation to advance ULI’s health-related work, including an emphasis on communities in Colorado.
The grant will support an expansion of ULI’s Healthy Corridors project, which seeks to transform isolated, auto-dependent commercial strip corridors into healthy, vibrant and inclusive mixed-use places. The project, which started in 2014, currently involves demonstration corridors in four U.S. cities, including Federal Boulevard in Denver. ULI worked with its district council in that city as well as those in the other cities – Los Angeles, Boise and Idaho — to engage local stakeholders in developing strategies to revive the corridors as appealing hubs that add economic and quality-of-life benefits to the communities.
A new ULI publication, Building Healthy Corridors: Transforming Urban and Suburban Arterials into Thriving Places, provides guidance on the revitalization process based on lessons learned from each of the four corridors. The grant from the Colorado Health Foundation will include more work specific to Federal Boulevard as well as additional activities related to the other corridors.
ULI will also encourage the adoption of health-promoting practices by creating a new network of institute members as well as leaders from philanthropic, land use and health-focused organizations. The Health Leaders Network will reflect ULI’s tradition of strong member and partner engagement and knowledge-sharing, and will nurture a group of leaders who are grounded in health data and are committed to using their expertise and influence to support the development of healthier places.
ULI will conduct additional outreach for two existing reports, the Building Healthy Places Toolkit: Strategies for Enhancing Health in the Built Environment and Active Transportation and Real Estate: The Next Frontier. The Building Healthy Places Toolkit, available as a publication and a website, offers practical, evidence-based strategies that the development community can use to meet consumer demand for healthier living environments and increase property values in the process. Active Transportation and Real Estate examines the impact of the growing interest in active transportation alternatives such as cycling on economic development, public health, air quality, community design and real estate design and investment.
The funding will also be used to support ULI’s work related to the relationship between access to healthy food and real estate development, which is highlighted in the Institute’s new publication, Cultivating Development: Trend and Opportunities at the Intersection of Food and Real Estate. In addition, the funding will promote the development of healthy affordable housing.
“We are extremely grateful for this generous support from the Colorado Health Foundation. It will help greatly to advance ULI’s work on creating healthy, prosperous and sustainable communities,” said ULI Foundation President Kathleen Carey.
“Our daily life has a direct impact on our health and is shaped by where we work, worship, shop and socialize,” states Karen McNeil-Miller, Colorado Health Foundation president and CEO. “In order for communities to thrive and residents to live healthy lives, creative and deliberate design is a must. As a strong leader in their industry, we are honored to support ULI.”
About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute 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 nearly 40,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines. For more information, please visit uli.org or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
