Events Explore ‘Destination Real Estate’

Two upcoming events will explore the future of shopping centers that combine retail stores with entertainment uses.

The Urban Land Institute will hold its eighth annual Urban Entertainment Development Conference March 26 and 27 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where more than 30 specialists in the design and development of entertainment-oriented shopping centers will deliver presentations.

The Westside Urban Forum will host a program Friday morning at the Riviera Club, 1250 Capri Drive in Pacific Palisades, on the future of such projects in Los Angeles.

The theme of the Urban Land Institute conference will be “creating destinations.” It will examine how shopping centers are becoming “destination real estate” by combining retail with entertainment, sports facilities, museums, restaurants, casinos, transit station centers, resorts and master-planned communities.

Keynote speaker will be David Brooks, senior editor of the Washington-based Weekly Standard and author of the book “Bobos in Paradise,” which explores the shopping preferences of ‘bourgeois bohemians,” or bobos. Featured speaker Thomas Krens, director of Guggenheim Museums Worldwide in New York, will discuss the blending of education and entertainment in his presentation, “Museums as Theme Parks.”

Speakers at the Westside Urban Forum meeting will include senior vice presidents David Malmuth of TrizecHahn Corp., Howard Samuels of LCOR Public/Private Inc. and Scott Bottles of Wells Fargo & Co.; and architect Steve Nakada, a principal of Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn.

Cost of the Westside Urban Forum event is $35 in advance, $45 at the door for Urban Land Institute members, $10 more for nonmembers. Information is available at 310-394-0253.

Cost of the Urban Land Institute conference is $1,145 for members, $1,295 for nonmembers. Information is available at 800-321-5011 and at https://www.uli.org.