After more than seven years of construction, Caltrain’s new electric trains have arrived, marking a transformative milestone in the region’s transportation landscape. This $2.4 billion project introduces quieter, cleaner, and faster rail service, significantly cutting travel time between San Francisco and San Jose.    HR&A Advisors is proud to support Caltrain in developing a governance […]

This report was originally released by Spur.   San Francisco faces a huge opportunity to reimagine its urban center. Downtown could become a 24-hour, mixed-use hub that is welcoming to all Bay Area residents and visitors. One tactic — converting empty, obsolete offices into apartments — could both reanimate the core of the city and […]

HR&A worked with the City of San José from 2017 through 2021 to negotiate and structure Google's transformative Downtown West development adjacent to San José’s Diridon Station. Through our strategic advisory and direct participation in complex negotiations, we helped secure a groundbreaking $200 million community benefits package and shaped a Development Agreement that has established a new national model for equitable technology campus development, with community advocates calling it "perhaps the strongest community benefits package for a project of its kind anywhere in the country."

  This press release was originally issued by Supervisor Dean Preston.   San Francisco, CA — As the city and the country grapple with the ongoing instability and collapse of the banking industry, the San Francisco Reinvestment Working Group advances a plan to create a municipality-owned bank. The Public Bank proposal offers a game-changing tool […]

“Conceivably you could, if money were no object, make any building work for residential. It’s a question of whether property owners, developers, and lenders will see that as an attractive enough investment to take that plunge.” ~HR&A Advisors Partner Kate Collignon    In this episode of the Gensler Design Exchange podcast, HR&A Advisors Partner Kate […]

HR&A Advisors has been honored to contribute to a landmark study with SPUR, ULI San Francisco, and Gensler to investigate how stakeholders might shape the post-pandemic future of downtown San Francisco. We investigated the economics underlying office to residential conversion to help fuel downtown San Francisco’s post-pandemic recovery. With downtown office space sitting vacant, can […]

This press release was originally issued by Urban Land Institute.   WASHINGTON (June 15, 2023) – San Francisco can create a more commercially vibrant and socially inclusive downtown that attracts a diverse range of industries and employers, advances housing attainability, and promotes stronger leadership, according to findings released today by the Urban Land Institute (ULI). […]

After two years of detailed planning and engineering, evaluation of multiple station layout options, and 5,700+ community inputs, San José Diridon Station is ready to move to the next phase of redevelopment. The Diridon Partner Agencies have released an Alternatives Development Report, and elected officials have approved the At-Grade Alternative for environmental review. When complete, […]

We caught up with CEO Jeff Hébert and Managing Partner Kate Collignon to talk about HR&A’s new Bay Area office, what makes the region special, and how the firm’s work is shaping what’s next for cities across Northern California and beyond.     Why did HR&A open an office in the Bay Area?   Jeff: […]