Austin Monitor’s Chad Swiatecki reports on ULI Austin’s March Breakfast:

At Wednesday’s Urban Land Institute Austin breakfast discussion, interim University of Texas President Jim Davis offered a candid assessment of the university’s evolving role in Austin’s booming development scene. Once regarded as one of the city’s largest builders and employers, Davis said UT now finds itself competing for attention alongside tech giants and multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects transforming the area.

“There was a point in time that UT was like the big builder in town. We’re not anymore, not in this town,” Davis said, pointing to challenges the university faces in attracting contractors and improving its partnerships. “We’re struggling to be in the top 10 anymore of people who want to come work for us. … Sometimes we’re hard to work with.”

Those remarks, delivered to a room full of developers and land use professionals, touched on the university’s long-term ambitions to reshape its real estate strategy, including plans to install caps over portions of Interstate 35 near campus, expand student housing and better align future construction with Austin’s workforce and economic development goals.

Read the full article at this link.

ULI Members can login to Knowledge Finder to view the breakfast video.