Tuesdays at APA–Chicago

Making Your Development Approval Process an Economic Development Tool

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 • 5:30 p.m. CT

As we emerge from the Great Recession, communities with a predictable development review and approval process have a powerful competitive advantage in attracting private investment and economic development. Now, more than ever, limited access to capital, weaker markets, and less ability (or willingness) to share financial incentives is steering good development toward "easier" environments. "Winning" communities are delivering a predictable entitlement process that advances the community's planning and development objectives and rewards good development with less stress and less delay.

This concept is not about giving away the store, "padding" anybody's bottom line, or accepting undesirable development. The focus is on a balance between the assurance that communities must have from an approval and the predictability a developer seeks in navigating that process.

Michael Blue, FAICP, from Teska Associates will draw on his experience managing municipal development departments and serving clients as a consultant to outline how communities can evaluate their approval systems with an eye toward securing desirable outcomes. The session will focus on questions such as: What parts of the approval process are most essential? What elements may be missing from your process that can provide greater confidence to city and developer?

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Tuesdays at APA–DC

The Mutating Big Box

Tuesday, May 21, 2013 • 5:30 p.m. ET

Quietly, stealthily, there has been an ongoing "flattening" of the American metropolis, as many suburbs are becoming more similar to their central cities, and cities more similar to their suburbs.

One such sub/urban condition is the mutating big box. In 1962, retailers Wal-Mart, Target, and K-mart all opened their first large discount stores in response to the rapidly growing suburban market. Thus emerged the big box, the retail type perhaps most associated with suburbia because its form both resulted from and embodied the commodity culture often associated with mid-20th century American settlement.

As demographics evolve and markets change in today's flattening metropolis, the big box is moving into denser environments — and as a result, its basic form is mutating into new versions that reflect the increasing hybridization of suburban formats with urban constraints.

This presentation by Judith K. De Jong, architect, urbanist, and assistant professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will trace the emergence of key versions of the sub/urban big box, both in the inner city and in urbanizing suburbs, and will project possible urban and architectural opportunities of this shift.

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Get more details about this program, and read about the Tuesdays at APA–DC programs scheduled for future months.

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