Gary Block is managing director at The Meridian Group and responsible for the firm's acquisitions, capital and fund management, investor relations, and is a member of the Investment Committee. Mr. Block has over 28 years of industry experience.

Prior to joining Meridian, Mr. Block was with The Carlyle Group, where he was head of the Real Estate Fund's Acquisitions Group. At Carlyle, Mr. Block led and completed over $12 billion of investments ($3.4 billion of equity) in nearly 200 transactions. Investments included the acquisition, development, structured financing and recapitalization of office, hotel, retail, residential, industrial, land, senior living and mixed-use properties. At Carlyle, Mr. Block also led the firm's efforts in the formation of Carlyle Realty Partners I, II, III, IV and V (constituting, in the aggregate, over $5 billion in investor commitments).

Kurt Roeloffs is founder of Protean Capital, an investment firm focused on providing capital to young companies with the right people, ideas and projects for transforming the built environment. Mr. Roeloffs founded the company in 2013 after decades of experience in commercial real estate development, investment banking, investment management and private equity.

Before establishing Protean, Kurt spent 23 years of his career with Deutsche Bank. He served as its Global Chief Investment Officer (2009 - 2012) and its Chief Executive Officer for the Asia Pacific Region (1999 - 2009) during which time he was stationed in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Previously, he was the Founder & Managing Director of Bankers Trust's Real Estate Investment Banking Group in Hong Kong. He began his career in real estate at the Trammell Crow Company. Kurt received his BA from Columbia University and his MBA from The Wharton School.

Mr. Goldman is Vice President of Development and manages the Pike & Rose project, along with other redevelopment opportunities in Federal Realty's portfolio. He joined Federal Realty in July 2008 with ten years of experience in development, finance, and architecture.

Prior to joining Federal Realty, he was a Partner at the Holladay Corporation, a mixed-use development company in Washington, D.C., where he began his involvement with the White Flint Partnership. He has also worked as an Associate for Tishman Speyer Properties and as Vice President of Design for LeRoy Adventures.

Mitch Bonanno is Senior Vice President and Director of Development with Vornado/Charles E. Smith. He is a real estate veteran with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Mr. Bonanno leads the Washington, DC development team for Vornado and is responsible for new development, major asset repositioning, and creative place-making for asset groupings. Mr. Bonanno also participates in strategic acquisitions involving value-added development and portfolio repositioning.

As an Arlington County Board-appointed member of the Crystal City Planning Taskforce, Mr. Bonanno led Vornado's efforts to establish a new vision for Crystal City, and worked with County and Community partners to develop and enact the 2010 Crystal City Sector Plan and Crystal City-CO zoning ordinance. Prior to joining Vornado/Charles E. Smith, Mr. Bonanno served as Development Executive for Clark Real Estate Advisors, an investment and development consulting firm. Mr. Bonanno holds a Master of Science in Real Estate from Johns Hopkins University and Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in civil engineering from the University of Maryland College Park.

Christopher Leinberger is a leader in development and has done extensive research on TOD, and how it is transforming settlement patterns and lifestyles across America.

Voted one of the top 100 urban thinkers, Mr. Leinberger's research is a blueprint on how to approach development that will sell in the new cultural context. Mr. Leinberger is a land use strategist, teacher, developer, researcher and author, balancing business realities with social and environmental concerns. His most recent book is The Option of Urbanism, Investing in a New American Dream. He  is the author of Strategic Planning for Real Estate Companies and has contributed chapters to 12 other books. He is an Op-Ed Contributor to the The New York Times, writes regularly for The Atlantic Monthly and numerous other magazines.

Bill Alsup is Senior Managing Director at Hines. Since coming to Hines in 1979, he has been responsible for more than 6.7 million square feet of commercial real estate. He had the overall responsibility for development, acquisition, leasing and property management activities in the Washington, D.C., area and the East Region of the United States.

Additionally, Mr. Alsup was the project officer and senior project officer during development of Washington-area projects such as Columbia Square, Franklin Square, Postal Square, 600 Thirteenth Street, Gannett/USA Today Headquarters, Mitretek Systems Headquarters and 4100 North Fairfax. After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia, in 1968, Mr. Alsup attended the University of North Carolina where he was awarded a Master of Business Administration in 1973.

Maria Sicola is an executive managing director at Cushman & Wakefield and head of research for the Americas. As the leader of C&W's Americas' Research Team, she is responsible for developing relationships with some of C&W's largest corporate clients, as well as managing regional directors throughout North and South America.

Sicola's work has focused on real estate market analysis, forecasting and site selection. Some of her clients include Citi, Wells Fargo, Goodman Birtcher, SFChina, Crate&Barrel, Prologis and Boston Properties. She also collaborates with George Washington University and LOCUS on the Walkability of urban cities.

Doug Firstenberg is a founding principal of StonebridgeCarras where he focuses on strategic planning and project conceptualization and takes a primary role in major transaction negotiation. He has more than 25 years of experience working on complex real estate financing and directing the implementation of the firm's strategic plans.

Some of his work includes overseeing real estate projects in excess of 10 million square feet and $2.5 billion in costs; Negotiating acquisitions and joint ventures in excess of $1 billion; Negotiating debt financings in excess of $1 billion; Negotiating leases for more than 4.0 million square feet of space; Creating structures for not-for-profit clients that maximize opportunities, using techniques such as ground leases, public/private partnerships and combining public institution debt placement and real estate tax exemption with private sector development programs.

Mr. Lawrence has over 25 years of experience at JBG in all areas of commercial real estate investment and development. He has focused on the creation and development of mixed use, transit-oriented development for much of his career as well as the development of over 5 million square feet of GSA leased office space.

He is member of the Steering Committee for LOCUS, a national organization to promote transit-oriented, mixed use, walkable development across the country.  He is a member of the National Board of Directors of NAIOP and is the Vice Chair of the Real Estate Council for the Kogod School at the American University. B.A. Economics, The College of William and Mary; M.B.A. Real Estate and Urban Development, American University.

Mr. Kannan brings extensive planning and transit oriented development experience in the public

Stanton was not yet mayor in 2008 when light rail made its debut in Phoenix. Today passengers take nearly 44,000 trips on light rail on a typical weekday, already beating the local transit agency's estimates for ridership in 2020. Long-neglected neighborhoods are experiencing new life, and major employers credit transit for their decision to add new jobs in the region. Light rail in Phoenix was always a machine to transform urban life. Advocates in Phoenix, like those in many other cities, claimed light rail would introduce a whole new type of development, one that would appeal to both working millennials and retired snowbirds.

Add one other thing to the rail mix: a proposed new streetcar extension that would link the McKinney Avenue Trolley line to the Oak Cliff-Union Station streetcar route that began in April.