Insights | Hunden Partners

Thought Leadership

After 30 Years, I Believe We Need a Better Way to Build Great Places

By Rob Hunden

Over the past three decades, I've had the privilege of working alongside communities as they make some of the most important investment and development decisions they'll ever face. I've worked with leaders who had the courage to pursue bold ideas and have seen the lasting impact that those decisions can have on residents, businesses, and visitors for generations. Entire downtowns, campuses and communities have been transformed around the world by game-changing real estate and destination development projects. With more than one thousand projects, studies and processes completed over the past 30 years, experience becomes wisdom, then ideally, innovation to improve outcomes.

First, a reality check: most ideas never see the light of day. Or if they do, they don’t get past the master plan, the feasibility study, or the financing effort. For many, it’s the appropriate conclusion to the filtering process. Some ideas are simply not well-conceived or won’t survive the marketplace. Saving a leader or community from a bad investment is just as important as executing a good one.

For many others, excellent, well-conceived projects die prematurely due to lack of know-how, leadership, experience, expertise, timing tied to elected or leadership support, and frankly, unfortunate decisions.

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