Our cities are hubs for innovation where ideas collide, and creativity abounds. But just as they are magnets for the bold and new solutions, a higher density of people means you also get a stronger concentration of the challenges are experienced in the region. In the spirit of tackling these challenges, the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative was formed.
The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is a program that equips Mayors and senior city officials to tackle complex challenges in their cities and improve the quality of life for their residents. Each year, the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative offers leadership and management training to mayors from around the world, and to senior officials from each mayor’s city who are most crucial to affecting organizational change. Part of the initiative includes the Collaboration Track which leverages private sector partners in the quest to better understand the city's challenges and inform potential solutions.
In December, I was invited by the Mayor’s Office to participate in the Los Angeles Collaboration Track focused on DTLA recovery. To kick off the initiative, Mayor Bass convened a large group of DTLA stakeholders, many of whom were CCA members, and the discussion focused on the myriad challenges Downtown faced. Following this discussion, the official City of LA participants were announced. I would join John Adams with Gensler, Adam Burke with the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, Bert Dezzutti formerly with Brookfield, Deputy Mayor Rachel Freeman, Deputy Mayor Randall Winston, Chief Housing and Homelessness Officer Lourdes Castro Ramírez and Clare Kelly in an intensive months-long program focused on Downtown Recovery.
Caption: Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Kick Off Meeting with Mayor Karen Bass and her Staff
The months that ensued consisted of regular zoom seminars facilitated by Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative professors helping us apply best practices to collaboration. The City of LA cohort was joined by cohorts in from American cities like Long Beach, CA; Louisville, KY; Newport News, VA; Providence, RI; Tallahassee, FL; and global cities like Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Medina, Saudi Arabia; uMngeni, South Africa; and Wellington, New Zealand each with their own unique focus.
Caption: Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Zoom Seminar with Participants from Around the World
In March, all participants met at the Bloomberg Headquarters in New York to do deep dives on our respective challenges, in collaboration with the participating cites. This is where the City of Los Angeles honed in on the significant number of underutilized spaces in our city center. Upon a careful analysis of the landscape before us, we decided to tackle the underutilization of office buildings first.
Caption: All Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Cohorts Convened in New York City
As a culmination of the initiative, last month the Mayor’s Office took the lead on assembling a meeting on adaptive reuse. The meeting consisted of presentations by Deputy Mayor Rachel Freeman, LA City Planning and LA Department of Building and Safety on City efforts and initiatives, including Executive Directive 7. After the presentations, developers, property owners, architects, engineers and experts in adaptive reuse projects dating back to the late 90s provided input on the key barriers to conversions, what other municipalities have enacted to incentivize them and tools to help close financial feasibility gaps.
Caption: Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Final Meeting in the Mayor’s Office Focused on Adaptive Reuse
While the formal initiative is over, the work continues. We are thrilled with this Mayor’s Office workstream that dovetails with ongoing CCA efforts on adaptive reuse. Be sure to watch this space as there is much more to come.
Onward,
Nella McOsker
President & CEO of CCA