The Urban Land Institute (ULI) holds its national Fall Meeting at the Miami Beach Convention Center next week, Monday, Oct. 26, through Wednesday, Oct. 28. The institute says the event draws more than 5,000 attendees for 45-plus sessions, 100-plus speakers and 25-plus development tours across South Florida.
ULI describes the meeting as a gathering of real estate developers, investors, planners and urban designers. Its program for the meeting is organized around nine themes, including housing, sustainability and resilience, capital markets, and the future of cities.
Monday: keynote and tours
Registration opens at 7 a.m. Monday on Level 1 of the convention center's West Lobby. The opening general session, a keynote conversation with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, runs 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Grand Ballroom AB. A welcome reception follows from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the New World Center, 500 17th St.
Most of Monday morning belongs to the tours, which require a separate ticket. Three are based on Miami Beach and its northern neighbors:
- Miami Beach's Cultural and Commercial Renaissance (8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.), a walking tour ULI describes as covering public investment, placemaking and new office, retail and luxury hospitality development in the city's core.
- Exploring Miami Beach by Land and by Sea (9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.), a ride on an amphibious Miami Duckboat through the city and into Biscayne Bay, focused on hotel redevelopments and waterfront estates.
- Beyond South Beach: Miami's Next Luxury Waterfront Frontier (10:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.), a look at North Beach, Surfside and North Bay Village, including branded residences, resilient infrastructure and mixed-use projects.
Other tours head to Wynwood, the Design District, Brickell, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, the Underline, Miami Freedom Park, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
Separately, a Lewis Center Sustainability Forum runs Monday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Miami Beach Women's Club, 2401 Pine Tree Drive.
Tuesday and Wednesday sessions with a local hook
The bulk of the programming is panels at the convention center. Several touch on topics that matter locally:
- Short-term rentals and condo-hotels. "The New Hybrid Residence: Condo-Hotels and Short-Term Rental Condos" runs Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. Its listed speakers include a representative of Airbnb.
- Coastal resilience. "Nature as Infrastructure: Advancing Equitable Climate Resilience in Coastal Cities" is Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. On Wednesday, "Can and Should Buildings be Rated for Hazard Resilience?" is at 10:30 a.m., and "Buying and Selling Risk: How to Drive Resilience Investments at Scale" is at 1 p.m.
- Housing and entitlement. Tuesday's lineup includes "The Cost of Delay: How Inefficient Entitlement Processes Affect Affordability and Feasibility" (10:30 a.m.) and "Creating Workforce Housing: A Layered Strategy Including Statewide Legislation and Transit-Oriented Development" (4 p.m.), with Miami-Dade County officials among the speakers. Wednesday's "A Public Land Model: How Miami-Dade County Is Turning County Assets into Housing Supply" is at 10:30 a.m.
- Luxury condos and hospitality. "South Florida's Luxury Condo and Hospitality Market: Branded Residences and Exclusive Amenities" is Wednesday at 10:30 a.m., with speakers from Arquitectonica and The Related Group.
- Finance migration. "Becoming the Wall Street of the South" is Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., with speakers from Akerman LLP, Citadel and Thoma Bravo.
- Homelessness. A "Homeless to Housed Symposium" runs Wednesday from 9 to 11 a.m., with representatives of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.
The market-outlook session, "Emerging Trends in Real Estate," is Tuesday at 1 p.m. in Grand Ballroom AB. The closing general session, with artist and urban planner Candy Chang, the National Building Museum's Aileen Fuchs and Toni Griffin of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, is Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.
Miami Beach as a case study
ULI is also using the meeting to showcase the city's resilience work. The institute's magazine, Urban Land, published a May 2026 feature, "The Miami Beach Playbook for Coastal Resilience," tracing the city's strategy to a 2018 ULI Advisory Services Panel.
According to the article, the city shared the panel's report publicly and used it as a roadmap. The article cites Bayshore Park, a $42.8 million, 19.4-acre park opened in September 2025 that doubles as stormwater infrastructure, and Brittany Bay Park's living shoreline. It also describes a July 2025 seawall ordinance amendment that lets the city compel private owners to repair seawalls, noting that roughly 90 percent of the city's approximately 55 miles of seawalls are privately owned. The Journal recently covered the city's new seawall-only Fight the Flood grant cycle.
What to know
The meeting is an attendee event. ULI's schedule lists registration at the West Lobby and marks the tours as requiring separate tickets; the Journal did not find a public-access option. ULI's Miami guide for attendees points to Brightline, Metrorail, Metromover, ride-share and the free Miami Beach Trolley for getting around.
Some third-party event listings give different dates. ULI's own site lists Oct. 26–28.
Previously covered by the Journal
Miami Beach Opens New, Expedited Grant Cycle for Seawall Upgrades Under Fight the Flood Program
How the Live Local Act Was Made — and Widened Three Times
