About this Event
You can already see what a site could become. What would it take to build it yourself, with the City as your partner?
More architects are taking on the developer’s role: starting projects themselves, putting the teams together, and seeing them through from idea to occupancy. Many of the best opportunities in New York run through public agencies and mission-driven lenders, including underused sites, supportive and affordable housing, and high-performance new construction and retrofits. From the outside, those programs can be hard to make sense of.
This panel is a practical guide for architects ready to make that move. Sarah Leitson (NYC HPD) and Megan Rosa (NYCEEC) will explain what their organizations fund, what they look for in partners, how to spot opportunities before an RFP comes out, and what makes a first-time team credible. James Petty, Alex Barrett, and David Cunningham, AIA will bring the practitioner’s side: finding sites, raising capital, managing risk, and using design thinking to make hard projects pencil out.
You’ll leave with a clearer picture of the programs and partners available, and the first steps toward starting your own project.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this program, participants will be able to:
- Identify the NYC HPD programs and NYCEEC financing tools that architects starting their own projects can use, including supportive and affordable housing programs and lending for energy efficiency. They’ll also know what each organization looks for in a development partner.
- Describe practical ways for a first-time architect-developer to find opportunities before a formal RFP comes out, build credibility without a public-sector track record, and put together the right team of partners, lenders and consultants.
- Explain how an architect’s design and feasibility skills can be used to evaluate difficult or underused sites. That includes working within the zoning, code and approval processes that protect occupant health, safety and welfare.
- Evaluate how design choices such as energy performance, accessibility and livability affect a project’s financing, operating costs and long-term public value, and how to make that case to agencies and lenders.
Event venue & nearby stays
Mercury Store, 131 8th Street, Brooklyn, United States
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