The Regional Conference Recap – Part 2

Another recap by our ULI YLG co-chair, Steffenie Evans:

Gates Foundation

After a fun evening on Friday, the group reconvened to tour both the Gates Foundation and the Visitor’s Center.  Norma Miller, the Facilities Director for the Gates Foundation, gave us a behind the scenes tour of the campus.  Highlights included touring the stunning atrium with its 60 foot high window walls, where the foundation holds company-wide events.  The LEED Platinum facility was designed by NBBJ and features integrated workspaces, a one-million-gallon underground rainwater storage tank and a green roof spanning a half acre.

The visitor center, designed by Olson Kundig, showcased the foundation’s three main areas of focus: global development, global health and US efforts with a series of rooms featuring interactive exhibits where visitors can better understand the challenges the foundation address.

Duck Tour

The group then boarded a WWII amphibious landing craft and drove through downtown, Pioneer Square, the waterfront along the viaduct (relating to previous day’s discussion), 99 along the Aurora Bridge, then down into the water to see Seattle’s waterfront from a unique perspective.  While the Duck Boat Captain gave us plenty of quirky Seattle history and made us do the YMCA through downtown, Kerry Nicholson provided local real estate insights about the new waterfront plans, the Sculpture Park, and site of the future Brooks Headquarters.

South Lake Union Discovery Center

Dan McGrady gave an overview of Vulcan’s development in South Lake Union, highlighting the various developments on their interactive map.  The group then broke up into two groups and toured several notable recent developments in the neighborhood, including:

Art Stable – Jim Friesz and Kirsten Murray from Olson Kundig gave us a rare glance inside of the Art Stable condominium project.  Built on the site of a former horse stable, the project features active elevations, with an 80 foot tall hinge and crane system mounted to the building to allow owners to hoist large pieces of art into their units.  Facing west, the raw shell units feature oversized, hinged windows operable with a steering-wheel like mechanism.

• Stack House – Melissa B. Wechsler with Runberg Architects met the group on the sunny corner across from Vulcan’s newest mixed-use development.  The project adapts a 100-year-old historical laundry supply building, complete with a smoke stack, into a mixed-use office project.  Vulcan is targeting LEED for Homes Platinum certification for the project and will pilot a new bio-filtration swale system in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities.

• Museum of History and Industry -Leonard Garfield, Executive Director of MOHAI, allowed us a sneak peek at the new MOHAI facilities (set to open in December 2012).  Housed in a complete renovation of the historic Naval Reserve Building in Lake Union Park, the main exhibit space featured soaring ceilings with several installations in progress, including Boeing’s first seaplane, the famous Rainier “R”, and an exhibit featuring a visual portal to both the lake below and the sky above.

Bravehorse Tavern

Eric Tanaka, Executive Chef with Tom Douglas shared insights on locating restaurants, organic vs. local food, and new vs. old historic restaurant spaces.  After a grueling effort spent hauling heavy soil up three flights of stairs to create a rooftop vegetable garden, Tom and Eric now have their own farm in Prosser.  While they don’t see themselves expanding outside of the Pacific Northwest due to the tight quality control they like to maintain, the two have definite plans to keep expanding locally.  How do they formulate new restaurants?  Eric shared that Tom will eat something amazing on his travels and they will spend months trying to recreate the dish.  Once they’ve accomplished this, they work to put their own “spin” on the dish.  Next up for Seattle: falafel!

The conference ended with beer, pretzels and shuffleboard at the latest Tom Douglas haunt.  The Seattle Young Leaders had a great time planning this conference and look forward to seeing you all next year in Vancouver!

Regional Conference Recap Part 1 – Friday

YLG Cascadia Conference – Friday Recap!

[Through the eyes of ULI YLG'er Katlin Jackson]

Friday of the annual YLG Cascadia Conference was an awesome day of learning, networking, and fun!  The morning started off with opening remarks by Mayor McGinn, who offered inspiring words on urbanism and the role of leadership in creating the communities we love to live in.

Our keynote, Alan Ehrenhalt, spoke about “The Great Inversion” and shared his insights about the changing demographic shifts occurring in urban and suburban centers, and the effects on our built environments and locational cultures.

The Adaptive Reuse panel was great, and the ideas shared by our panel on the value of preserving buildings carried extra meaning, as we were sitting in one of the hottest adaptive reuse projects in Seattle, Melrose Market.  Thanks to Chuck Wolfe, Jim Graham, Liz Dunn, and Eugenia Woo for your inspirational words on the value of adaptive reuse.

Things got really interesting at our Waterfront Redevelopment panel!  We had speakers from Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver (Patrick Gordon, Marshall Foster, Brent Toderian, and Charles Kelley) duke it out over waterfront development, and which city does urban living better.

By the afternoon, we were all ready to get our walk on!  The Capitol Hill Walking Tour filled the rest of the afternoon, as six groups led by six rockstar Capitol Hill leaders strolled around the neighborhood checking out boutique development projects, neighborhood parks, the new light rail station, and the Bullitt Foundation.  Tour leaders sported the signature green ULI trucker hats to fit in with the Capitol Hill hipster scene!

The night was topped off with a BBQ on the Turner rooftop, a great Mariners game, and of course a late night dance party!  Real Estaters really know how to bust a move!

Stay tuned as we will post the Saturday Recap tomorrow.  On Monday, we will post a collage of photos.

How Cool Is The 2012 Cascadia Regional Conference Venue?

Anthony Bourdain cool…that’s right, he was sighted at the Melrose Market this week filming what one can logically deduce as an episode for his TV Show.  While we can’t guarantee Mr. Bourdain will appear during the conference this year, we can guarantee an all around great time with many other special guests.  You can still register now by clicking here. 

 

Cascadia Regional Conference: Sign Up For The Duck Tour!!

A quick reminder that you will need to sign up for the ‘Duck Tour’ portion of the conference separately!  To do so, either call this number, 1-800-321-5011, or make sure you select the option when you sign-up for the conference here. 

What is the Duck Tour you ask?  Here are 6 reasons you should sign up!

• Everyone else is doing it (all 15 members of the Seattle YLG Leadership Team have signed up already)
• If you don’t sign up now, there’s no option for signing up the day of the event.
• Despite being totally cheesy, haven’t you always kind of wanted to blow on one of those duck horns?
• In addition to touring the Seattle Waterfront, Pioneer Square, Fremont and Gasworks Park, you’ll get to see several Seattle neighborhoods that aren’t covered in the rest of the conference (and aren’t on the standard Duck tour)
• ULI senior leaders and YLG members will be offering colorful commentary on real estate developments while we tour
• If you don’t sign up, there will be a significant break in programming – you’ll have to hike to the next conference stop and eat lunch all alone!

Check out their website: www.ridetheducksofseattle.com

 

Cascadia Regional Conference: Bullitt Center in TIME Magazine Blog

A main feature of our Capitol Hill tour during the ULI YLG Regional Conference is featured in Time Magazine this month (click the image below).  Don’t forget to register for the conference…you can do so by following this link:  REGISTER NOW.

‘For a six-story, 50,000 sq. ft. building to function completely off the grid, its tenants will need to get used to taking the stairs and using composting toilets’

 

Cascadia Regional Conference – Mayor Mike McGinn and ‘The Duck Tour’

Order your ticket for the Duck Tour before it’s too late! (Register Now By Clicking Here)

Following the Gates Foundation tour on Saturday morning, grab your boxed lunch (provided with the price of registration) and jump on a duck to tour some of Seattle’s outlying neighborhoods. Local real estate professionals will highlight projects along the way while you enjoy a cool breeze and a delicious Portage Bay sandwich. No conference programming has been planned for those choosing not to ride the ducks. Attendees choosing not to participate will be on a break until programming resumes at the South Lake Union Discovery Center early in the afternoon. We highly encourage attendees from Seattle to join us on the ducks because it will be unlike any other Duck Tour you’ve experienced! For the non-Seattleites, we also hope you chose to attend because this is a great way to visit neighborhoods outside of the downtown core with relative ease!

On top of that, we’ve just learned that Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn will provide the opening remarks for this year’s ULI YLG Conference! 

Register Now By Clicking Here. 

 

Cascadia Regional Conference: Capitol Hill Tour

What do Seattle’s first Living Building, historic preservation, and the founder of Molly Moon’s all have in common?  They are part of the Capitol Hill Walking Tour at this year’s annual YLG Cascadia Regional Conference!  Join us as we explore the Capitol Hill neighborhood with local developers, retail tenants, and community advocates and learn more about what makes the Capitol Hill neighborhood THE place to be for great real estate in Seattle.  Click here to Register!