Federal Financing-apalooza
| No, our headline doesn't have the same ring as Lollapalooza, but yesterday we spotted finance-finding rock stars, at MPC, CAF and ASA events, who make the three week wait until the music fest just a bit more bearable. |
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Farr Associates Doug Farr (here with Regional Transit Authority's Steve Schlickman and Chicago Metropolis 2020's Nancy Firfer) spoke at the Metropolitan Planning Council and Chicago Architecture Foundation's "Reinventing Public Investment" luncheon. A big proponent of LEED for Neighborhood Development, Doug hopes the designation will be considered when the government is assigning recovery funds. He tells us he's completing a project in uptown Normal, IL to create a traffic circle around a park, on the intersection of five streets. Despite our prodding about the uniqueness of the project, he refused to use the phrase "unusual for Normal." |
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The Ford Foundation's Don Chen (Smart Growth America founder) says part of creating sustainable neighborhoods is creating equitable transit-oriented developments. They make the retail and multi-family they house appealing to more than just low income families because of the opportunities for inclusion. He also says making your development multi-variant and multi-benefit can help gain interest from government funding sources. (We'll add tax evasion to that list, but for entirely different reasons.) |
