At RCLCO Brentwood offices, leaders across real estate, policy, sports, and culture confront what is broken and what must be built next. That reality framed a pivotal gathering this week as the Urban Land Institute Los Angeles launched its new Hospitality & Entertainment Development Council that held a panel discussion called the Experiential Economy Talk. This event marked the first convening of a group already working toward a formal white paper in collaboration with subject matter experts in the private and public sector to be presented to city leadership. The goal is to clearly to translate insight into action, and action into policy.
Kellie Kao Miles, ULI-LA Executive Director, opened the evening by grounding the moment as this is not just about development cycles or market trends, but about how Los Angeles shows up to the world and to itself.
That urgency was reinforced by Darcy L. Coleman, Vice President of Asset and Investment Management at Alagem Capital Group and founding Chair of the newly formed council alongside council Co-Chair, Ron Frierson, newly appointed President & CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and Chair of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. “This is about bringing together the people who are actually building Los Angeles with the systems that need to support it,” Coleman said. “We have the expertise in this room. The question is how we translate that into real change.”
Frierson echoed that call for coordination, pointing to the broader economic stakes. “Los Angeles has always led through creativity and industry,” he said. “But leadership today requires alignment across business, government, and community to ensure that growth is sustainable and inclusive.”
“Los Angeles doesn’t have an idea problem; it has an execution problem. The opportunity in front of us is aligning public and private leadership to deliver on what this city is already capable of,” added Lew Horne, CBRE President and ULI-LA District Chair.
Derek Wyatt, Managing Director at RCLCO Real Estate Consulting, which hosted the event, framed the evening as the beginning of a longer-term effort to translate industry insight into actionable policy and implementation.
The discussion, shaped through a cultural lens that emphasized experience as infrastructure, made clear that cities are not defined only by what they build, but by how those places are lived, accessed, and felt. Few understand that tension better than Jon Blanchard, founder of JB Hotel Group, whose work across Los Angeles includes the revitalization of Broadway, the United Artists Theatre, the Hoxton Downtown LA, and the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica.\ “Los Angeles has excelled in sports and large-scale investment over the last decade,” he said. “But what is broken is the process; permitting, entitlements, the basic ability to get things done.” His message was direct with global events approaching, the window to fix these systemic issues is now. “We won’t have another moment like this,” he said. “If we don’t get it right now, we miss the opportunity.”
That urgency carried into remarks from Steve Kang, President of the Board of Public Works and the city’s Chief Film Liaison, who offered a rare look inside how change is being operationalized within City Hall. “I see my role as a problem solver,” Kang said. “Understanding what levers to pull, and moving with urgency, even in a system that is inherently bureaucratic.”
Facing a significant budget deficit, Kang emphasized that creativity is not optional; it is required. Recent actions reflect that shift. Filming fees at Griffith Park, once reaching $100,000 per day, have been reduced by nearly 70 percent to attract production back to Los Angeles. The Central Library, closed to filming for over a decade, has now reopened in March. “If there is urgency, and the right people in the right roles, even a city as complex as Los Angeles can move,” he said.
From a policy perspective, Carlos Singer, Chief Policy Officer at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, emphasized that revitalization cannot happen in silos. “Transportation, economic development, and policy are all interconnected,” he said. “You cannot solve one without addressing the others.”
That interconnectedness is already reshaping how investment flows across the region. David Siegel, Santa Monica native, and former president of the Los Angeles Sports Council and advisor to Riverside Pro Soccer, and CRO of Alex Ohanian's Athlos, pointed to the rise of new development models outside traditional urban cores, where stadiums, entertainment, and community infrastructure are being built together. “The opportunity is everything in between,” Siegel said. “Not just the venue, but the experience around it.”
Across the discussion, a clear duality emerged as Los Angeles remains one of the most culturally dynamic cities in the world, with unmatched creative talent and a global brand rooted in entertainment, sports, and innovation. Yet the everyday experience of the city from cleanliness, public safety, and infrastructure; continues to lag behind its potential.
As reflected throughout the panel, this disconnect is structural. Private investment continues to deliver world-class destinations, while public systems struggle to keep pace, creating a widening gap between what is built and what is experienced. If there was a unifying takeaway, it was that Los Angeles does not need reinvention, but alignment between policy and execution between public and private sectors, and ambition and accountability.
The new ULI-LA Hospitality & Entertainment Development Council, through its forthcoming white paper and continued convenings, is positioning itself as a bridge between insight and implementation because what is at stake is not just the future of development in Los Angeles from how the city is experienced by residents, visitors, and the world watching what comes next.