The Unified Development Approach™

Enabling Municipalities to Implement their Vision

For years, cities have planned and master-planned for a better future but in many instances have lacked either the resources or the expertise to transform their vision into reality. In partnership with Renaissance, municipalities will have the opportunity to truly implement a comprehensive downtown redevelopment strategy.

The Company's holistic approach ensures that planned uses and entitlements work in harmony and not in competition with each other. The Company's Unified Development Approach™ ("UDA") also reduces risk by helping to assure project sustainability thus maximizing social and economic returns for the Company's municipal partners and community stakeholders. The UDA creates a coherent and implementable vision with appeal to future residents and businesses alike (economic engines) by combining the elements of economic sustainability and environmental sensitivity.

Renaissance provides its municipal partners with the ability to redevelop and reposition land uses in harmony with self–sustaining, long-term economic development strategies based upon the ideals of authenticity and quality of life.

Comprehensive Planning as a Tool to Attract Funding

Another critical component of a comprehensive approach to downtown planning and redevelopment is the increased opportunity to receive significant federal funding assistance for efforts that could range from the construction of structured parking, rehab/revitalization of historic buildings, economic development grants and significant pools of money to enable the successful implementation of large scale, well planned and coordinated downtown redevelopment efforts. Such a comprehensive approach also provides a tremendous advantage for communities that are looking to institute or reinstitute rail service to their downtown.

The federal government has formed an interagency partnership that includes HUD, USDOT, USEPA, Federal Transit Administration and Federal Railroad Administration amongst other groups to jointly review grant applications. Renaissance has been involved in these discussions, including participation on panels that include high ranking members of the aforementioned agencies. The Presidential Administration and Congress, through their Sustainable Communities initiative amongst other efforts, is looking to award federal dollars to large scale, smart growth redevelopment efforts, especially those that focus on transit oriented development within our nation's downtowns. Their goal is to see significant returns on public investments that include job and economic growth, social benefits for communities and regions along with environmental benefits. With this in mind, a comprehensive downtown redevelopment designed to meet these objectives stands a far greater chance of receiving significant funding dollars and/or resumption of rail than smaller, isolated efforts. In short, the government is not looking to provide just streetscape grants and sidewalk benches - they are looking for transformative projects focused on our nation's downtowns that will serve the triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental responsibility.

An example of how to successfully leverage private investment to procure significant funding is Renaissance's Glen Cove Waterfront Redevelopment plan, which has garnered nearly 140 Million dollars in public funding for infrastructure and remediation work, along with funding slated for the construction of the City's ferry terminal. The concept utilizing private investment as a catalyst to attract federal dollars is an additional benefit to large scale, comprehensive downtown redevelopment efforts.

If you are a municipality interested in redeveloping your downtown,
please contact us via email or call 516-433-9000.