ICTC & Mainstreet 2015 Conference
 
Molly Alexander, Associate Director, Downtown Austin Alliance, Texas, US

Downtown Austin: Youth, music, innovation and tacos

Molly Alexander has had a successful career spanning 25 years in downtown revitalization, economic development, and enterprises in both the public and private sectors.

As the Downtown Austin Alliance’s associate director, Molly Alexander leads the organization's strategic planning and implementation, downtown retail development, operational management, and special projects such as Congress Avenue initiatives. She orchestrates a full range of programs that help vitalize the Austin business sector and create a sense of place.

Molly received her bachelor's degree in urban studies and history from Trinity University. Along with founding her own start-up company, her past positions have included Director of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, Director of the Georgetown Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Economic and Community Development Direcotr for the City of Elgin.

Malcolm Allan, Managing Director, Place Matters, United Kingdom

Using Place Brand Strategy to Create Liveable and Loveable Cities

Malcolm Allan was a qualified town planner and development economist before pursuing a career in urban planning and development in local government in the UK and the private sector globally.

Over the course of 40 years of practice he developed an interest in place-making and destination development which led to a deep and passionate interest in the contribution of place brand strategy to those fields and has pioneered the role of place brand strategy in the real estate development, in the renewal of city and town centres and in developing the offer of the tourism and culture sectors.

In 2003, with Simon Anholt and others, he set up the world’s first dedicated place branding agency - Placebrands.

He subsequently worked on place and destination brand strategies as a director of Locum Destination Consulting, one of Europe’s specialist destination development companies, and then Colliers International in London prior to establishing his current company Placematters in 2012.

For these companies he has worked on a wide range of brand strategy projects including country branding (Botswana), city branding in Amsterdam, Cork in Ireland, Mississauga in Canada, Kuala Lumpur city centre in Malaysia, Southampton and London (London Bridge) and Grimsby town centre in the UK, and tourism and health destination branding projects in China, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Taiwan, Ukraine.

He is currently developing mid-career place brand strategy courses on “Competitive Advantage” for cities for the Universities of York in Toronto and Surrey in the UK and blogs regularly for The Place Brand Observer and his own blog at Placematters.

He has been appointed as a judge for the new City Nation Place Annual Place Branding Awards (London November 2015).

Professor Edward Blakely, Founder and Chair, Future Cities Collaborative
Bringing Wollongong Back
Edward Blakely is thFounder and Chair of the Future Cities Collaborative. He is one of the world's leading scholars and practitioners of urban policy. 

He advised the City of New Orleans' Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development after Hurricane Katrina and has advised many other state and federal governments in the United States, Australia, Korea, Japan, Sweden, Indonesia, New Zealand and Vietnam. 

He has been Dean of School of Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California and Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University in New York City. He currently serves as an Honorary Professor in Urban Policy at The United States Studies Centre, The University of Sydney. 

His work at the Future Cities Collaborative allows Professor Blakely to combine his passion for sustainable urban design with  his expertise in teaching and fostering capacity building in all levels of government. 
Anthony McNulty, Head of Development - Retail & Major Projects, The GPT Group

Connecting with people

Anthony is responsible for the conversion and delivery of GPT’s development pipeline for Retail and Major Projects. 

Anthony has 30 years of experience in the property industry in Australia and overseas. His project experience includes the major redevelopments of Penrith Plaza, Erina Fair, Melbourne Central, Bluewater in the UK; the award winning Rouse Hill Town Centre  and One OneOne Eagle Street projects. More recently completed developments include Highpoint Shopping Centre, Liberty Place and West Keira Wollongong.

Anthony holds a Bachelor of Science in Quantity Surveying from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. 




Stephen Moore, Partner, Roberts Day

The Loveable City: How great places lead to great lives

Stephen Moore is Partner at RobertsDay and Principal Designer on large scale city design, urban renewal and infill projects. Projects with Stephen’s involvement have received a variety of awards, including the Australia Award for Urban Design Excellence. 

Stephen is the author of a number of publications, including ‘Shaping Sydney’s Squares’ and ‘Liveable Centres’ and has been identified as one of Sydney's most influential designers and planners. Alongside his practice, Stephen teaches at the University of New South Wales. 

Stephen was invited by CIty of Sydney to a key creative stakeholder in the future of the City of Sydney. In 2014, Urban Growth NSW chose Stephen to lead the place-making strategy for the North-West Rail project to transform Sydney.

The Loveable City: How great places lead to great lives presentation

After decades of focusing on suburbia, Australian’s are awakening to the “urban dream”.  Creating great places is now a key goal of city planning.  Get it right and people love their life; get it wrong and you risk social and economic ills.  But, what is the art and science of creating great places?  If people are seeking out experiences, we need to re-think the role of centres to offer more than everyday shopping in a main street setting. 

Stephen Moore, a Principal of Robertsday, will explain the essential elements for creating great places and reinventing centres to fulfill the needs of the 21st century citizen.  Starting with the firm’s unique Place Design approach that sits in the middle ground between urban design and place-making, case studies from around the country bring the elements to life.  On this trip, Stephen will share insights ranging from the firm’s work on the North-West Rail Place-Making Strategy (NT) to Palmerston City Centre’s Great Streets Strategy (NT) to reinventing Subiaco’s Pavilion Market (WA).

Full of practical lessons and evidence, Stephen’s presentation is essential to anybody interested in the idea that we can create cities people love.

Suzee Brain, Director, Brain&Poulter

Food to Activate The Main Street –5 Critical Success Factors for Making Food A Strong Anchor

Suzee is a Director of Australasia’s leading food consulting company to the Property Industry. Founded and staffed by award winning “foodies” from the Food Catering and Food Retail sectors, Brain&Poulter works with government and industry to develop food precincts of the future.

The companies highly strategic analytical skills coupled with passionate creativity have consistently delivered “food forward” concepts at Shopping Centres, Airports, Universities, Hospitals, Commercial Buildings, Theme Parks and Entertainment venues including

  • Australia’s 1st café court – Westfield Bondi
  • Wet’n’Wild Sydney
  • Sydney Airport T1, T2 & T3
  • Cockle Bay Wharf 
  • Mumbai International Airport 
  • Sydney Opera House 
  • Robina Town Centre 
  • Pacific Fair 2015

 Channel Nine Small Business Show ran an eight week story on the company’s work in shaping Australia’s food retail scene. The program has since been released as a training DVD.

Suzee is also joining the PCA judging panel this year for the National Shopping Centre Marketing Awards.

Food to Activate The Main Street –5 Critical Success Factors for Making Food A Strong Anchor

The Foodservice Industry in Australia (Cafes, Restaurants, Fast Food and Small Bars) is nearing a $50 Billion dollar industry in Australia and comprises some 57,000 shops. Around 75% of these shops are on the main street while the other 25% are found inside shopping centres. Within shopping centres, it is now the fastest growing specialty shop category, with developers keen to expand their casual dining and evening food offers.

In this session Suzee will explore how Council’s and Landlords can maintain and further enhance the food opportunities on Main Street to beat off the shopping centres and bring life and activation to the main street across all day parts.

Specifically she will address issues such as;

  1. What makes some main street restaurant precincts fire while others are ghost town
  2. What other anchors do you need to support your food operators and fuel activation
  3. What role does the public spaces of the main street have in building a vibrant restaurant precinct
  4. How do you attract successful restaurateurs to operate and invest in public assets.

 

Paul Donegan, Cities Program, Grattan Institute

The Great Debate: Creating Liveable and Lovable Cities

Paul Donegan is the co-author of Grattan’s first book, CIty Limits: why Australia's cities are broken and how we can fix them.

Paul leads the Cities program at the Grattan Institute. He has helped governments tackle some of Australia’s biggest social and economic challenges – as a Commonwealth and state public servant, ministerial adviser, and at the Grattan Institute. 






Dieter Lim, Managing Director, Tract Consultants

Rethinking the strip – building resilience in main street strips

Deiter has a great deal of experience in large scale masterplanning, urban, landscape and infrastructure projects. He has overseen the integrated environmental, landscape and urban design aspects for projects across a diverse field of typologies including green and brownfield residential development, activity centres, public facilities, campuses, transport and infrastructure corridors. Even as Managing Director of the firm, Deiter is directly involved in all major facets of project developments from the day to day running of the job including site analysis, conceptual design, design development, documentation through to contract administration.