About U3 Advisors

Summary

U3 Advisors (U3) works at the intersection of campus and city. We advance institutional missions through transformative economic, real estate, and programmatic strategies that positively impact communities. Our team is composed of creative, nimble, and strategic multi-disciplinary practitioners with backgrounds in urban planning, real estate development, GIS, data analytics, higher education administration, finance, architecture, and non-profit leadership. We care deeply about cities and are passionate about making communities more vibrant, equitable, and sustainable.

U3 has offices in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles.  We are proud to serve as development managers, advisors, and strategists to a wide and diverse range of higher education and mission-driven clients. Our projects are both local and in places such as Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, Fort Worth, San Diego, as well as abroad. For more information about our firm and clients, visit www.u3advisors.com.

Our Work 

At any given time, U3 has 25 – 40 ongoing projects, affording team members the opportunity to participate in various areas of real estate and economic development consulting and take on multiple client-facing roles. These may include helping clients to monetize real estate assets and select development partners; assisting with public/private partnerships and public approval processes; developing long-term strategic real estate plans for property portfolios; serving as virtual staff to universities seeking to develop new campuses, facilities, and innovation districts; creating new entities to lead neighborhood economic development and engagement strategies; and providing strategic advice around institutional growth and organizational dynamics.

Diversity

U3’s human capital is the most valuable asset we have. The collective sum of the individual differences, life experiences, knowledge, inventiveness, innovation, self-expression, unique capabilities and talent that our employees invest in their work represents a significant part of not only our culture, but our reputation and company’s achievement as well. We celebrate the diversity that makes U3 unique.While we continue to improve in established metrics for success in diversity, we are proud of where we are today. U3’s inclusive hiring process ensures that we create opportunity and a level playing field for all. Currently, U3 has 25 advisors comprised of a range of characteristics including gender (50% women), religion, race (30% minority), age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and education. This diversity fosters a culture of collaboration, innovation, and unique perspectives which translates into our client work.

Since U3’s inception 18 years ago, our work has been primarily based in urban settings that are both socioeconomically challenged and racially diverse. As stewards of development in several of the continent’s largest majority-minority cities, we live by the principle of doing the right thing for better reasons. Our focus on bridging the gap between communities and anchor institutions in cities like Detroit, the South Side of Chicago, Memphis, College Park (MD), Newark (NJ), New Orleans, and Buffalo speaks to the core of who U3 is and our deliberate impact.