Reimagining Cities-Disrupting the Urban Doom Loop

PLACE MANAGEMENT IN WALKUPS Total number of place management organizations in WalkUPS by city and budget size

12 14 16 18 20

4 6 8 10

0 2

Dallas

Austin

Miami*

Seattle

Boston

Denver

Atlanta

Raleigh

Phoenix

Chicago

New York

Philadelphia

Los Angeles

San Francisco

Washington DC

#of BIDs in WalkUPs w/ Budget >$2M

#of BIDs in WalkUPs w/ Budget <$2M

Source: Places Platform, LLC; Cushman & Wakefield Research Note: *Miami has one BID whose budget is private and thus not counted in this particular chart.

Also, while 46 states have BID-enabling legislation, four states do not, including Illinois (Chicago, in our sample, has place management organizations but no BIDs). In some states, legislation is considered flawed and discourages the formation of BIDs, such as in Massachusetts, where there are only three BIDs in the entire Commonwealth. Across the WalkUPs in our 15 cities, nearly two-thirds of real estate inventory is under the purview of a place management organization, usually a BID—but this varies by WalkUP type. As mentioned earlier, urban universities tend to do their own place management, so only about 20% of Live and Work inventory and 28% of Play inventory in an Urban University WalkUP is managed by a separate BID. In Downtown Adjacent WalkUPs, 55% to 60% of the real estate inventory is managed by a place management organization. For Urban Commercial WalkUPs, 60% of Live, 72% of Play and 80% of Work inventory is in a WalkUP managed by a place management organization.

In Downtowns, where most place management organizations are located and where the largest operating budgets are, a significant 80% of Work, 86% of Play inventory and 88% of Live inventory are under the management of these organizations. In other words, less than one fifth of Downtown inventory is without place management, indicating a high level of active management in these areas. Does active place management lead to better outcomes compared to WalkUPs without them? Do larger budgets translate into improved GDP, increased foot traffic and higher real estate valuations? On average, WalkUPs with place management organizations performed as well as those without them in terms of GDP growth from 2019-2023. However, this masks two important truths: Downtown WalkUPs with place management organizations outperformed those without them, while other WalkUP types—Downtown Adjacent, Urban Commercial and Urban University WalkUPs—underperformed and had

58 Cushman & Wakefield