Letter from the President:

Larry Lund

SouthBeach was another outstanding LAI Weekend Experience.  Members from thirteen Chapters including Sacramento, Boston, Washington, St. Louis, Chicago, Toronto, San Diego, Los Angles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Vancouver, and London enjoyed the sold-out event.

LAI members had a busy schedule looking at the architecture and urban design that has made Miami famous and we had two hard-hat tours of developments that are expressing the new Miami.  Our members toured the new condominiums at Aqua, a new urbanism development on Allison Island and stood on stage at the new opera house of the Miami Performing Arts Center.  We visited established neighborhoods that are experiencing development pressures as well as neighborhoods that are distinctly Cuban and serving as the core of Miami’s economic resurgence.  One of our lunches was at an outstanding new restaurant, Ortinique in Coral Gables where the city is a partner in its development.  Overall, it was a very rich experience.

The next Weekend Experience is set for November 12-13 in Sacramento-Napa. The Sacramento Chapter has put together an outstanding program that features some very exciting new developments in the capital city along with a focus on the agricultural aspects of land economics, including agri-tourism, as we visit the wine country in Napa Valley. They are also arranging tours of some private wineries and Saturday evening they are scheduling a dinner at Tra Vinge, one of Napa Valley’s top restaurants. The Weekend Experience is designed if one wishes to continue on to San Francisco or other parts of California during your visit. More information on the Sacramento-Napa Weekend Experience will be in July KeyNotes and registration will be available beginning in August.

Also, at the Board of Governors meeting, which was held in South Beach at the National Hotel, we unveiled our newly designed website by our webmaster Josh Kent. Go to 209.224.198.102 and take a tour. Let us know what you think. It is not entirely complete yet, but I think you will like how the site feels. We will also be adding more features soon, including a new search engine in the member's only section.

Larry Lund
International President
LarryLund@LAI.org

Editor's Column

We actually put in a good day’s work as your international executives during our wonderful weekend experience in South Beach . One of the nicest surprises was learning that our web site has been receiving 6,000 hits monthly, almost half of them from non-Lambda Alpha members.

If you haven’t looked at our web site lately, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Better yet, our Online Keynotes is greatly improved of late thanks to the talents of Josh Kent (our webmaster), Terry Stevenson (our association rep), Larry Lund and Jim Fawcett.

Our Online Keynotes looks so good that we think we are now worthy of having advertising. We’ve come up with a pretty good deal, if I do say so myself. For the paltry sum of $250, your company can have your corporate logo with a link to your firm in all 12 issues of Online Keynotes and in the two printed editions.

Or, for another $250 an issue, you can have your firm as the master sponsor of the issue and have a write-up about your firm in the issue.

I am so enthusiastic about this splendid opportunity that my company, Market Pointe Realty Advisors, will be the first 12- issue sponsor of Online Keynotes.

I would welcome the opportunity to showcase your firm in Online Keynotes. Just give me a call or an e-mail.

Ely Chapter

Susan Aaron, Civic Program at DePaul University ’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development and Ely Chapter Board member has been appointed to the Women's Board of the University of Chicago.

MarketPointe will provide economic forecasts, track the new home market throughout California and develop research papers on topics of importance to the homebuilding industry.

MarketPointe Realty Advisors, with a staff of 18 professionals, gathers and analyzes data on new homes sales throughout Southern California and conducts feasibility studies throughout the Western United States. The firm was founded 28 years ago.

For further information, please call Jamie Ramey at 619-233-3781.

New Administrative Director

Welcome Michele Meng!

Michele Meng is our new Administrative Director for Lambda Alpha International. She graduated from DePaul University in 1997 and worked at URISA, The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association for 6 years. She was the primary contact in the office for all membership matters.

Her e-mail is mmeng@association-mgmt.com.

New Members

Lambda Alpha International is pleased to welcome the following new members since January 2004:

Aloha Chapter

London Chapter

Minnesota Chapter

Ottawa Chapter

Philadelphia Chapter

San Diego Chapter