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What's New

Impact Investing in the Bay Area

The Grand Boulevard was featured at a full-day conference on May 7th that highlighted impact investing opportunities and challenges for fiduciaries operating in the San Francisco Bay Area and broader California. Many fiduciaries of institutional assets are unfamiliar with impact investment opportunities and their related portfolio implementation issues. The conference explored these opportunities and implementation issues with a particular focus on the Bay Area. The discussion included leaders in finance, philanthropy, academia, and policy. The goal of the convening was to identify ways for fiduciaries to safely move assets into alignment with regional economic development and sustainability goals. Michael Garvey presented the Grand Boulevard as one such opportunity. At the close of the day, Lauren Agnew, of Seal Cove Financial, called for participation in development of a Bay Area Impact Investing Initiative and was met with hearty enthusiasm from much of the audience. Stay tuned for updates about this intriguing topic.

The conference was held by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Seal Cove Financial. The conference program can be found here and includes a list of attendees and executive summaries of recent impact investing studies.

Call for Nominations: 2013 Grand Boulevard Awards

Deadline EXTENDED: April 18th

The Grand Boulevard Awards program recognizes projects and plans in the El Camino corridor that embody the GBI Guiding Principles. Details about nominations are provided below and in the attached documents. We look forward to your participation!

Recognition will be awarded to two separate types of efforts:

  1. Project (Public and Private): Physical projects in the planning stage, under construction, or that recently have been completed and that embody the Guiding Principles. Completed projects must have been built after January 2006. Projects can be private or public. A public project is strictly defined as a project which is located on public right of way. The inclusion of public funding is not a determinant.
  2. Visionary: Plans by Grand Boulevard Initiative (GBI) member agencies that embody the Guiding Principles.

Nominations must be submitted by a GBI Working Committee member. If you would like to nominate a project or plan you are encouraged to work with the Working Committee member that represents the jurisdiction in which your project or plan is located.

Nominations will be evaluated by the Working Committee, which will then make recommendations to the Task Force for final approval. Awards are non-competitive and will be given to all projects and plans that receive an overall score which exceeds a pre-determined threshold.

Nominations are due April 12th at 5pm. The timeline for the awards process is as follows:

January 31 - Call for Nominations released

April 12 - Nominations due

June 26 - Task Force Meeting approves recommended award recipients

Summer/Fall - Grand Boulevard Awards Event to Recognize Honorees

Nomination Materials

Nomination Form

Nomination Instructions

There is no limit on the number of project or plan nominations per jurisdiction or award category. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ronny Kraft at 650-508-6367 (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or to go through your agency’s representative on the GBI Working Committee. A list of the Working Committee members and their contact information is provided with the nomination instructions.

 

New Video: Post-Redevelopment Financing Workshop

It has finally arrived! This video shows the presentation slides and audio from the Post-Redevelopment Financing Workshop that was held last Fall. The goal of the workshop was to explore alternative funding mechanisms to redevelopment and case studies. The event was hosted by the Grand Boulevard Initiative as part of the Economic & Housing Opportunities Assessment Phase II. Speakers include Sujata Srivastava, Sarah Graham, and Alison Nemirow of Strategic Economics.

Questions & Answers
Event Summary

The Grand Boulevard was featured on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny!

The Grand Boulevard was the topic of this morning's Forum broadcast on KQED titled "Re-inventing El Camino Real."

To listen to the broadcast click here: Re-inventing El Camino Real

Speakers included:
  • Corinne Goodrich, manager of strategic development for the San Mateo County Transit District and program manager for the Grand Boulevard Initiative
  • Dena Belzer, president of Strategic Economics, an urban economics consulting firm
  • Kevin Connolly, transit planning manager for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
  • Russell Hancock, president and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and co-chair of the Grand Boulevard Task Force
The host was Dave Iverson.


The Grand Boulevard was the topic at SPUR today!

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) hosted a lunchtime forum about the Grand Boulevard Initiative today in downtown San Francisco. Speakers Dena Belzer, of Strategic Economics, and Kevin Connolly, of VTA, gave wonderful presentations that focused on ECHO and VTA's planned BRT service. The Grand Boulevard was well received and the audience discussion was insightful and thought provoking. A big thank you to SPUR for hosting this great event.

The presentations are available here: www.spur.org 

Photos from Grand Boulevard Initiative Community Events at Local Farmer's Markets

The Grand Boulevard Initiative held exciting community events at the San Bruno and San Carlos Farmer's Markets this summer! Experts in health, transportation, and the environment chatted with residents about their vision for the future of their communities and El Camino Real. Many community members came by to pick up a Grand Boulevard Initiative tote bag and give their feedback, including desires for more bicycle amenities, safer pedestrian facilities, and adding more landscaping. Check out the photos from the events!

These events were funded by a grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Upcoming Events

Watch the Grand Boulevard video on Vimeo

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