About Advisory Services:
One of ULI’s core values is LEADing in solving community and real estate challenges through applied collective experience. Advisory Services Panels (ASPs) and Technical Assistance Panels (TAPs) organize member volunteers to tackle at least one specific problem faced by one of our local communities. Our ULI Sacramento TAP/ASP Initiative works to provide local, national, and/or international ULI member expertise to cities or counties facing complex development challenges.
In March 2024, Downtown Sacramento Partnership partnered with ULI Sacramento, and urban planning experts from around the country, for a third party analysis of growth opportunities downtown. The report makes it clear that we must double down on making downtown a destination of choice as remote and hybrid work policies become the norm. The recommendations present guidelines for short and long-term strategies the Partnership should take in tandem with public partners to ensure sustainable growth and health of our City.
Read the full report at this link.
In 2022, ULI Sacramento held one TAP: Marysville and Yuba City Infill Housing in a Small Town Setting (2022)
and one ASP: Attainable Housing in Commercial Corridors (2022)
What’s the difference between a TAP and a ASP?
TAPs are a fee-based service that provides market-based expertise of local ULI members to cities, developers and other organizations that need objective analysis and advice on how to solve difficult development problems. TAPs are led by ULI Sacramento and are typically one- to three-day sessions in which multidisciplinary teams of five to eight real estate development professionals tour the site under review, interview local stakeholders, and meet to develop recommendations that are presented publicly at the end of the session and in a follow-up report. ULI Sacramento provides TAPs for a fee, ranging from $25,000-$35,000. A list of past Sacramento TAPS can be found here, and ULI National maintains a searchable district council TAP Library.
ASPs are also a fee-based service that offer unbiased and independent solutions to the most complex problems facing communities. ASPs are coordinated primarily by ULI National and include ULI members from across the country, and sometimes beyond, that represent a diverse set of perspectives to provide practical solutions and objective advice on the problem at hand. ASPs can be done virtually (2.5 days) or in-person (5 days). In-person ASPs typically include a sponsor dinner, in-depth briefing day, stakeholder interview day, two days to develop recommendations and a presentation day.
Downtown Sacramento, like many downtowns across the United States, is in the midst of a seismic shift in the way it functions, who calls downtown “home,” and how it generates revenue for the rest of the city. Today, downtown is no longer the office location of choice for an estimated 40,000 state employees on any given weekday who have taken the State of California up on its offer to work from home. Permanently.
ULI Sacramento facilitated inclusive conversations leading to the development of a community toolkit that empowers residents to engage in neighborhood decision-making on a range of issues, including project funding, budgeting, site activation, and development approvals.
A ULI Advisory Services Panel listened to over 75 stakeholders and offered, for two light rail stations, strategies to leverage community assets and infrastructure to improve physical, social and economic conditions for equitable transit-oriented development.
ULI hosted speakers from four cities across the U.S. with exceptional successful waterfronts and convened two days of meetings with public and private experts from both sides of the Sacramento River. Recommendations were presented to both West Sacramento and Sacramento City Councils.
Working in partnership with the City of Sacramento, this TAP explored opportunities for an Entertainment and Sports Center and associated development to maximize property values, tax revenue, and investment in Downtown Sacramento. The TAP also made recommendations on how to create a unifying vision for Downtown as a destination and neighborhood.
ULI created a Vision Plan for this historical industrial and commercial corridor separated from the center city by a freeway constructed in 1968. The Vision Plan sparked interest in the corridor, leading to subsequent planning and infrastructure projects. This corridor has since become one of the City’s infill development hot spots.