It took three years and fears about the pandemic to ease but as the curtain goes up on the Urban Land Institute's spring conference in Toronto, a record of about 4,500 real estate professionals and other guests were expected at an event that had been postponed since 2020.

Ron Pressman, the global chief executive of the group, which has 46,000 members worldwide, said in an interview with CoStar News that attendance at the event starting Tuesday will reach a new high for the ULI spring meeting, with most visitors from outside Toronto, and he chalks up part of that to people just being eager to meet in person.

The fall meeting in Dallas in October 2022 had 6,000 guests but fall sessions generally outdraw the spring events.

"People love to be together, it's really important," said Pressman. The event marks the first time the spring session has been held in Toronto since 1985.

"As much as we realized we could be resilient and create all kinds of online platforms, which enabled us to do all kinds of things, there is nothing like getting together, and humans love sharing ideas. It sometimes hard to do that virtually."

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research group was forced to pull the plug on the event in March 2020 as the pandemic began to circle the globe, but it had always planned for the event to be rescheduled to 2023.

The World Health Organization declared the pandemic on March 11, 2020, before declaring on May 5, 2023, the global health emergency was over. The recent announcement clears the way for crowds to gather.

"These events are great opportunities for the ULI community to get together, it's the big tent of real estate," said Pressman. "It's folks from all different kinds of pieces of the real estate ecosystem, including architects, engineers, developers, property owners, investors, financing organizations and others."

Pressman, who took over as chief executive eight months ago, said his group's objective approach to real estate is now focused on three priorities, including sustainability and decarbonization, housing equity and education.

"These priorities were shared with me in the interview process which is what attracted me to the job," said Pressman, who previously spent seven years at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, where he was chief executive of TIAA Institutional Financial Services.

"My objective is how to ensure the real estate community is a leader in sustainability, decarbonization and resilience-type initiatives around the world. How do we ensure ULI is a leader in sharing best practices around housing opportunities and ensuring we are a leader in diversity and inclusion?"

The chief executive said housing issues can differ from market to market in the global organization but the issue of equity, that people can afford to live in the communities where they work, is consistent.

"There has been a lot of for-sale housing in Toronto but maybe not as much for rent and that's the beauty of ULI, we can bring rental opportunities and ideas we can share," said Pressman. "ULI has a history of independent research and solutions that are not political."

Today he said there are questions about whether there is a fundamental change in the use of office space in major urban hubs.

"It's a topic of discussion in many different district councils and ULI presents an opportunity to share the thinking going in in Washington, D.C., L.A., San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Hong Kong or Toronto. Many are addressing the same issue while some have unique issues."

While the pandemic was a once-in-a-lifetime event, ULI was founded in 1936 and has been around for some massive changes in society.

"It was founded coming out of the Great Depression," said Pressman. "Over time the world goes through crises. There has been a financial crisis. We have had world wars. Every situation is different and every crisis is different but ULI has survived."