Repairing the urban environment.

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:07] Tracey Gabriel works at Repairing Urban Environments. She’s president and executive director of the National Landing BID. There she puts her experience as urbanist, planner and place maker to work, leading the makeover of Virginia’s largest downtown with over $8 billion in private investment in the pipeline. Crystal City was designed with the best of intentions and the best of planning principles in the 1970s. It’s a car-centric place spotted with pedestrian tunnels and underground malls. It’s Tracy’s job to turn this inward-looking place into an outward looking one. Walkable, livable and vibrant at street level is the goal. It’s quite a tall order. For a woman who is committed to addressing complex urban challenges and building great neighborhoods, this is the ultimate role.

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Eve: [00:02:34] Hello, Tracy, I’m really excited to hear about your work today.

Tracy: [00:02:39] Eve I’m so happy to be here.

Eve: [00:02:41] So a really big question, how do you transform a very large neighborhood built for the car with underground pathways into a paradigm for 21st century urban centers?

Tracy: [00:02:53] Well, that is our grand challenge. So if you aren’t familiar with it, we’re talking about the National Landing area, which is comprised of Pentagon City, Crystal City and Potomac Yard in Arlington, Virginia, just minutes from downtown D.C., Washington, D.C. And you know, this area came to fruition during the sixties and seventies with a very, you know, auto centric sensibility. We had actually like urban density, drivable density, but the sensibility was one of inverted or introverted buildings, mega blocks, retaining walls, just a hostile environment.

Eve: [00:03:44] And this. And I read underground retail, too, so…

Tracy: [00:03:47] Oh underground, exactly. It’s again that introverted nature of the buildings. And we know today that it’s so critical for our urban centers that we actually are competing on place and the experience of place. And so much of that is about walkability. It’s about street level activity. It’s about engaging storefronts. It’s about interesting businesses that create authenticity and the identity of place. As we’re looking at sustainability, it’s also about green and bringing nature into our urban environments. It’s about having every mode of access and getting around. So we are trying to right now in the National Landing area is take that sixties and seventies paradigm and turn it on its head. And actually, our goal is to become the most connected downtown in the country. It’s very ambitious.

Eve: [00:04:51] It’s a pretty big goal, yeah.

Tracy: [00:04:52] It is a big goal. How do you do it, you ask the question? You do it through very good planning. First off, I think as someone who comes from an urban planning background, I’ve appreciated how much our local jurisdiction has focused on planning and important inflection points, including a plan just approved this past weekend and the idea of actually planning for growth. And through that growth and development, making those on-the-ground changes to our urban infrastructure that really have a people-centered transformation at its heart. So whether that’s block-by-block buildings that now have activated retail and storefronts, it’s reclaiming streets for multiple modes and for people. It’s about extroverts eating our buildings, even repositioning, you know, our existing portfolio buildings and making them have the kind of urban sensibilities that we have today. And of course, it’s investment in new infrastructure. Parks connected to place and then actual transportation options that are really about next generation mobility.

Eve: [00:06:03] I love the idea of going from introvert to extrovert for a city. That’s a great way to describe it. But like, let’s start talking first about the actual National Landing BID. What is that and why was it formed?

Tracy: [00:06:17] The National Landing BID was formed back in 2006 as the Crystal City Business Improvement District, and it was really in response to base realignment and closure and the shrinking of the federal sector locally. BIDs are often, come in at the moment where an area needs extra place management

Eve: [00:06:37] And BID stands for Business Improvement District, right?

Tracy: [00:06:39] Yes. And just to tell what a business improvement district is, it’s a public private partnership financed by property owners to focus on the vibrancy and vitality of a central business district or downtown. And the focus has typically been around clean and safe and business attraction. And I think what’s different for, I think the National Landing BID, is that we are really focused on being place makers, storytellers, ideas generators and community builders

Eve: [00:07:15] Who are the major players in a BID. I mean, I know we have a BID locally here in Pittsburgh, and I know they exist everywhere, and they all function a little differently. So, what was the idea behind this particular BID and who pushed it forward?

Tracy: [00:07:30] Yes. So, we expanded three years ago and then became the National Landing BID. We increased our geography to reflect the entire downtown. But it came on the heels of the announcement of Amazon…

[00:07:43] Oh, okay.

[00:07:45] …locating its HQ2 in our area, which, you know, in truth it was a long-standing goal of our area to expand the BID to reflect our entire downtown, and I think with the advent of Amazon coming to the area and the opportunity to actually unify our district is really an essential moment to see the importance of a BID in managing change and growth in the area and being, having a local steward for our business owners and our property owners.

Eve: [00:08:21] It sounds like this might be one of the largest BIDs in the country.

Tracy: [00:08:25] In terms of budget, we’re at just about five million dollars, which is probably mid-sized, but I think what we have going for us in terms of biggest is, I think the biggest transformation underway. We have eight billion dollars in private sector investment, of which many people have read about the $2.5 Billion that Amazon is bringing to the area. We are a downtown that is comparable in scale to downtown Oakland or downtown Austin. We’re set to be a downtown Miami soon and we’ll continue to grow from there. So, I think it’s the notable component of our downtown is just how much change is underway in terms of the pipeline of investment and the emphasis on innovation and the repairing of the urban experience is what is a distinguishing feature of our area.

Eve: [00:09:28] So when you repair the urban experience and there’s this focus on transformation, what does that look like for residents or for workers or for retail activities?

Tracy: [00:09:40] Yes, repairing the urban fabric is all about, I think, stitching together our area more seamlessly. I think what we know is that walkability is increasingly important, as is having spaces for surprise and delight and respite in an urban environment. We know that during the pandemic, how important that is. So, the kind of ease of getting around, the ability to have everything that you need in one district to be able to access the small businesses that you love to shop, to eat locally. So that’s all part of the transformation. It’s really about a live work balance. I think one of the things we also know is that, you know, monolithic places don’t feel great. And I think building a place in terms of the urban repair, it’s about balancing the mix of uses and ensuring that workers and residents and live work is and embodied abundance.

Eve: [00:10:43] So just tell us in detail what have been the residential and workplace transformations. What’s been built so far, what’s been accomplished to date and what’s still being planned? It’s probably a really long list.

Tracy: [00:10:56] One of the things we’re seeing and, as we speak, I am looking at several cranes right across the street from me. And what we’re seeing is sort of a block-by-block transformation now. Some are, you know, rehabbing of existing buildings to again go back to our first metaphor of extroverted buildings, we’re seeing, you know, retail that was once internalized being brought to the street front. Bringing more green on a block-by-block basis. Just recently, we reclaimed the front door to our neighborhood or metro system, made that into really a park experience as people came out, come out of our metro. And so, we are building lots of new housing. So we already have 26,000 residents. But each new building in the past 10 years has added to mostly our residential staff, and we have about 7,000 more units already approved and set to be constructed. So, we’ll be actually the fastest-growing residential neighborhood in the Washington, DC area.

Eve: [00:12:04] And what about like from a zoning point of view? Have you made any changes? I ask this question because I was really impressed by a neighborhood in Australia a few years back where they had just left industrial and retail and residential sort of all mixed up, and it was an incredibly vibrant place. It was, you know, really the sort of, a very enticing idea to live in a place like that rather than segregated into like, you know, a neighborhood.

Tracy: [00:12:34] Absolutely. So, I mentioned that good planning has been at the heart of the faith in a blueprint for sustainable growth, for yielding the kind of environments we want to live in. And one example of that is the fact that in the plans, there has been incredible intentionality in retaining a 50/50 balance between office and housing. And in some ways, I think the Arlington County, our local jurisdiction was ahead of its time because what we’re discovering now is that office markets that are just office are feeling very under loved at the moment.

Eve: [00:13:18] The pain? Yeah,

Tracy: [00:13:20] In pain.

Eve: [00:13:21] Absolutely.

Tracy: [00:13:22] And there’s cascading effects where retail can’t survive in that environment. So, the fortunate thing that we have here is that we plan for that balance and we actually have a 1:1 ratio by presence between jobs and housing. And we’re going to continue that with all the growth and development. We’ll continue to have that 1:1 ratio, that ideal balance between jobs and housing. And why is that important? It means that our streets are going to have people on them, no matter what the back to office environment or the new work experience for everyone is, that we will have a vibrant, very characteristically urban place and we’ll be able to sustain the small businesses that again are the lifeblood of how people experience and identify with places on the ground, street level activity.

Eve: [00:14:13] I imagine that you are also able to reduce the amount of parking and the number of cars being used when you have that sort of relationship, right?

Tracy: [00:14:22] Absolutely. You can reduce that, and you want there to be walkable trips to do most of what we have. The other benefit we have locally is that we are investing in the larger-scale transformation of transportation assets. So how do you make it super easy for anyone who lives here or works here to get anywhere else in the region? And so, there’s been a lot of investment in big infrastructure in terms of how we are going to connect people to where they want to live or work, but also then focusing very locally on the micro mobility, the human-scaled streets. How do you get the last mile that you need to get in? And I think, yes, we are overbuilt in terms of parking. Again, we came of age at a time where it was very auto centric, and we have lots of empty garages. So much so that we annually have a bike race in our garages on the three lower floors that that are not used. On weekdays. So, it just shows you we know that we are overbuilt and we actually, only I think 20 percent of our trips are single occupancy vehicles. So, we are extremely transit oriented in how people go to and from our area. And I think the way people want to live is to be able to take some individualized, maybe a scooter, maybe their bike or maybe walking to this and we can offer, our goal is to be able to offer seamless ways to do any of that.

Eve: [00:15:55] Interesting. So, what’s going to happen to all those empty garages? Are they going to be torn down, converted into lofts? Like, what’s the goal?

Tracy: [00:16:03] Very interesting, because if you, look, there’s so much complexity, because one of the things that we have going on here is that we have a lot of concentrated ownership and that’s historically, and it’s changed hands, but the portfolio has stayed largely intact, which means you have multiple buildings sitting on large parking garages. So very complex urban infrastructure when you don’t have the garages just tied to one building, but you have the fortunate circumstance that with large-scale property owners, they can make investments that are transformative because they see the value, the entire portfolio. So, what the future of our underground is that you mentioned before, the underground retail, what the future of our garages are, I think are yet to be seen. But I think what we know is that we need more of the street-oriented retail and less of the parking garages and more multimodal options. And I think having what we have is an asset, but we don’t need, we don’t need more.

Eve: [00:17:08] Right, right. Interesting. So, I have to ask, who decides on how to rebuild this place? Is this a top-down project or is the community involved?

Tracy: [00:17:18] We have one of the most engaged local communities. I’m so impressed. As an urban planner myself, my history and work experience has been largely in community-based planning, so I’ve always been on the public side of the planning equation doing that engagement. And the thing that strikes me locally is just how engaged. As I mentioned, we have a number of plans that were community-based plans, but we’ve even had the community go further to create their own plans around livability and joint visions beyond, even. So, you have a lot of bottom up planning, and we’re seeing how that has dovetailed into the plans for the county. Ideas like green ribbons going through our neighborhoods, green networks tying together our places have, came up from the community and have made it to our plans. And of course, during the development review process, it is a case study in community conversation over the scale and the benefits of development. So, I think one of the unique things with that level of engagement and involvement and the amount of planning and what is pretty exceptional in this area is just how much commensurate investment in parks and transportation and great design is able to be achieved, which could mean that growth actually can equal greater liveability, which isn’t always the case. And I think so much of that is because of the robust dialogue about how you balance development with the needs of who’s living here.

Eve: [00:19:03] Interesting. So, what does the demographic look like there?

Tracy: [00:19:07] In our downtown area, we have about 26,000 residents, and like much of Arlington County, we probably skew pretty heavily in a Millennial demographic. So, a lot of folks in early to mid-career. And, but we have the full gamut. We have a lot of people who have naturally occurring retirement communities here as well. People who moved here at the outset and then, from a diversity perspective is something that the BID has been really passionate about, is making sure that we retain the diversity that we do have. We are in a very diverse region. Washington, D.C. is a metro area, is a minority majority region, and that is a quintessential component of what great cities are, is having great diversity. And we’re very interested in not just retaining but also growing, making this an inclusive place that is really for everyone. And as you know, I think affordability always is the greatest challenge for ensuring that we retain the diversity that we do.

Eve: [00:20:19] That was going to be my next question. How is affordable housing part of this mix?

Tracy: [00:20:23] I think one of the things that we know is that the perils of growth and development are really what it does. It can potentially do to an already existing affordable housing crisis. I think we have two parallel things happening. One is just growing the inventory of housing generally, as a release valve. So, we I mentioned we have a lot of units in production and it is a hope that that helps to deliver on the demand that exists. Additionally, unfortunately, we started off here with a baseline that there wasn’t very many committed affordable housing units, but that has been a joint focus of the county, of our property owners, of Amazon, to up the focus on affordable housing. And that’s incrementally on a project-by-project basis on what they can deliver in terms of affordable housing, either on site or through funding for affordable housing. And then there were game-changer investments. We had the fortunate circumstance of being Amazon’s housing equity fund, which is a $2 billion fund. Their very first initial investment was in a property that’s just a block from their current campus and that, through the Washington Housing Conservancy, turned an existing housing development into what will be long-term affordable housing, especially workforce housing, over time. So those kinds of investments, where that’s to the scale of like 800 units and another, potentially another 800 units that go with infill development around it. You have 1600 units that are within, or will be, within a block from a major job centre. I think it’s that combination of policy of incremental steps towards affordable housing. And then, we’re fortunate to have this, kind of the game-changer, large-scale investments that really change the conversation and change the metrics that we could accomplish.

Eve: [00:22:40] Yeah, I suppose that’s always the worry. Like if you the more gorgeous you make it place, the more unaffordable the housing becomes, and 800 units just seems to kind of scratch the surface. It’s a problem…

Tracy: [00:22:52] Oh, absolutely.

Eve: [00:22:53] Every country is having. So yeah, I don’t know how you solve it.

Tracy: [00:22:58] Yeah. The other issue that exists broadly in the housing market is just that predominantly in our market, it’s almost all rental. And that’s a product of the fact that we mostly have REITs here and other things and just historically what has been built. And so, opportunities for kind of multifamily condos and home ownership hasn’t been in abundance and in terms of zoning, I think tackling some of the single family areas to see what other missing middle housing can get developed is also in a joint effort.

Eve: [00:23:35] I think D.C.’s had a pretty transitory population to right, which is kind of pushed it towards more rental than ownership. What I understand, I don’t know. So, tell me the really big things that you’re excited about for the next five years and maybe even the next 10 years.

Tracy: [00:23:52] I’m excited on multiple fronts, but I mentioned before I’m excited about a people-oriented transformation. We actually, as a BID, have tried to be the spokesperson for that transformation, and we have a People Before Cars campaign. But People Before Cars Coalition, bringing together transit advocates to really elevate the conversation. And we have four billion dollars in transportation projects in our area. Four billion. So astounding number. That includes Big Rail that can seamlessly connect our region, transformation of our airport, which is actually adjacent to our district, and one of those projects that we’re talking about is a big idea that the BID spawned and that was, that’s a pedestrian or multimodal connection to the airport, from the airport to our main street, which will be a five+ minute walk.

Eve: [00:24:55] Wow.

Tracy: [00:24:56] And is currently in the planning and will be in the design phase going forward. So, things like that, where we will go from maybe a hidden edge city to the only downtown in the country where you can walk a comfortable and attractive walk to an airport in five minutes?

Eve: [00:25:15] Wow, that’s pretty significant.

Tracy: [00:25:19] Yeah.

Eve: [00:25:20] Are all those funds, federal dollars? Where do the funds come from, the four billion dollars?

Tracy: [00:25:25] It’s a mix, right? So, some of it is state and federal on the big rail projects. Some of it is state on our rail multimodal facilities and other ones are the complete streets projects and the kind of human scale work is being done by our county. So, it is a rich tapestry of transportation funding sources, but also we have public private partnerships to execute new metro station entrances and the like. So many players and, which is why we had put together a report called Mobility Next because there are so many different actors doing different projects, they just see the complete picture. You could understand the scale of the impact of those investments. And you know, quite honestly, from the standpoint of the BID, the thing I’m excited about is to be one of those ideas champions and be able to kind of push the envelope on what it can mean to have people-oriented infrastructure. So, we’re quite excited about that. I personally am excited to see, hopefully in the next five to 10 years in our role as a steward, is to hope that we can have shared benefits of all this development. I think we are a case study in urban development and urban transformations, given the pace and scale of what we’re experiencing and how we do it and how well we do, will be a measure and hopefully a model for how this can get done. And so we’ve been very focused at the BID and amongst our stakeholders having conversations around everything from racial equity to how do we build an inclusive community and, so I’m hopeful that we see advances there. And I think on the horizon, I think that we could have a real innovation district, a hub of activity between Amazon and we have the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus to the South. So, we’re really kind of interested in seeing what a living lab of innovation might be in our area.

Eve: [00:27:28] So I mean, what I love about this is that I think the powers that be understand that this is a really long-term hold on investment, but eventually there’ll be a return, right? And it’s not going to be in a year, but it’s going to be worthwhile because it’s a pretty big investment to make. That’s me thinking like a developer.

Tracy: [00:27:47] Yes. No, absolutely. And it’s precisely that. It’s that being able to think about the future and the impact and what the benefits can be and the return on investment.

Eve: [00:28:01] I’m going to just move to you now. You’ve always been a planner. And what led you to this career?

Tracy: [00:28:08] I would say planning is somewhat in my blood. I’m a born and raised New Yorker. I was raised in Manhattan, lived on the twenty first floor of an apartment building, a rent stabilized unit that my parents still live in, but, you know, I probably spent a lot of maybe too much time dreaming, staring out my window at the cityscape and being kind of a voracious observer of city life. So, it builds a compassion for cities in terms of their form, function, energy, but also I think cities are the top expression of community living and so I really also am interested in community and urban policy. And so what is the well-being of city dwellers? It’s also been kind of front of mind, but I think that foundation and that passion was born out of my experience as being.

Eve: [00:29:14] It sounds like you’re living your dream.

Tracy: [00:29:16] Yes, it is. It is a dream role.

Eve: [00:29:20] Yes. So where did you work before taking on this particular project?

Tracy: [00:29:25] It’s funny that I feel like taking on growth and change or being able to talk about and have conversations and convene around managing change, around, you know, discussing what is a best community outcome for an area that has been part of, I think, a through line in my career because I realize that if we’re going to have a sustainable future, growth is not optional in certain places, that is if you have a great infrastructure then we need to build around it. So many of the places in my career have been in a state of growth or re-envisioning. And so, before this role, I was focused on neighbourhood planning for all of Washington D.C. So, a community based planning role, really trying to think at the start of what equity driven planning might be and design-forward planning. So was talking to, you know, doing all the work throughout the neighborhoods and in D.C., it was a time of, I think, demographic shifts and lots of development. And so, I think that community conversation and upping the bar for engagement and just doing more to outreach to people and have a conversation was a big part of my role in development. And prior to that, I worked at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. And again, I think that was kind of an era of take it or leave it. A lot of mega-project thinking, but some of those around big ideas for affordable housing. So, I worked on the Queens portfolio, a central business district projects and on projects like Hunter’s Point South, which again, a combination of affordable housing and parks. And how do you create growth in existing neighborhoods.

Eve: [00:31:29] I just want to ask one final question. A project like this makes me wonder or a goal like this makes me wonder what went wrong in the first place. You know, and it makes me wonder, you know, what’s being built today that we’ll have to fix in 20 or 30 years? And I’m sure you’ve thought about that. I think about that a lot when I see projects emerge in the urban landscape. Some are pretty horrifying. I mean, how can we ensure, or can we ensure that the places we build today will work for many years to come?

Tracy: [00:32:04] Yeah, I think it’s a great question. How do you future proof? And I don’t, I mean, and how can you identify your blind spots in the moment? I often ask that question to my myself. And I even think that right now, urban planning lacks a paradigm to to work through some of this because I think the mantra of community engagement has always been the central component of that. And the idea of revitalization. But right now, we’re in an era where we need to know what that next thing is. It’s really about equity and planning, about inclusion, about growth, about really attacking, systemically the affordable housing crisis. I think that planning is lacking that toolbox to really tackle that. So, I think we know some of the places where we have blind spots like, as you mentioned the affordability that we’re achieving, it’s a drop in the bucket for what the overarching need is. Having a focus that’s predominantly on rental doesn’t have the diversity of options that you would want. And then of course, I think we’re already living this now, is like thinking about street level activity is so important. But you can’t have ground level activity everywhere because it kind of erodes the ability to be able to attract it and not every place can sustain it. So, making sure that when we think about how important that is to us that we’re actually more targeted about where that goes and it doesn’t have to be everywhere. I think there’s a growing understanding of that. But I think there will always be misses and then we’ll have vacant storefronts and trouble. And of course, future proofing the future of office is something I think we’re all trying to muddle through and discern what the changes and workforce and kind of what is the permanency of COVID-related shifts in behavior and what will that mean for the future of office going forward?

Eve: [00:34:20] I really appreciate what you’re doing, and I especially appreciate it because I worked for a planning department for a while, and I think you are probably an extrovert, which is why you’re able to drag this place from introvert to extrovert. I’m an introvert, and I found it very difficult managing community engagement. I mean, you haven’t talked about that much, but that is a really tough part of the job because people are so scared of change. You’re in the role of having to convince them, right?

Tracy: [00:34:47] Yeah. You know, I think that one of the things that is a little bit different here and there’s an incredible appetite for community engagement and conversation. We might have meetings like nearly every night, even virtually in this virtual context.

Eve: [00:35:02] Oh, wow.

Tracy: [00:35:03] Right. I think that the thing that is very heartening is just how much alignment there is in terms of what people want as goals and outcomes and where that aligns between the community and the business community and then the county’s planners. There’s so much alignment about what is good for residents and community is actually good for business. So, retail parks, great transportation, walkability, vibrancy, these are all things that, affordability. We want to live in richly textured places and those are actually the places that perform well. So, I feel like the alignment that exists between having the same goals of what, some of what success means, it’s so critical.

Eve: [00:35:56] So it makes your job a little bit easier. Well, thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and the next time I’m down in D.C., I’m going to be heading over to Crystal City and all the other places and checking it out. It sounds amazing.

Tracy: [00:36:10] Well, we’d love to have you. So, thanks so much.

Eve: [00:36:13] Thank you. That was Tracy Gabriel. Tracy loves cities. She’s had a remarkable career as an urbanist, planner and place maker, committed to addressing complex urban challenges and building great neighborhoods. Now she’s turning her passion towards the remaking of Virginia’s largest downtown. We can’t wait to see the final outcome.

Eve: [00:36:53] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.