At the impressionable age of 7, Larisa Ortiz saw her future in the colonial-era streetscapes of the quaint coastal town of Guayama, Puerto Rico. Summering with family in her father’s hometown, she pattered down cobblestone streets in meandering walks to her abuela’s home, stopping to marvel at the shops and ornate houses along the way. “The buildings were magical to me,” Ortiz recalled. “It was like being transported to the past.” Because so many edifices were timeworn, the precocious Ortiz had a vision. “I fantasized about buying the whole town and fixing it up,” she said.

From that, a lifelong passion was born. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was real estate,” she said. “It was a historic renovation of a walkable environment I wanted to do. Even then, I understood there was a discipline to it.”

It’s no surprise that Ortiz has grown up to be a widely influential city planning consultant. During her 26-year career, the managing director of public and nonprofit solutions for New York City-based place-building consultancy Streetsense has brought meaningful urban change to communities. In 2023, the oft-decorated Ortiz was named a Crain’s New York Business Notable Leader in Real Estate. The author, educator and Fulbright Scholar’s 26-year career includes a 10-year stint as principal of her own planning consultancy, Larisa Ortiz Associates, and a seven-year term as a New York City Planning Commissioner under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

How She Got Here

In 2003, she earned a master’s in city planning from ultraselective MIT. She traveled to El Salvador for her Fulbright year, working under land scholar and architect Mario Lungo Ucles on downtown-preservation plans while teaching planning courses at Universidad Catolica de El Salvador. But her studies were interrupted as two deadly earthquakes that left nearly one in four El Salvadorian homes uninhabitable turned her attention to recovery efforts.

Ortiz was also a Watson Fellow whose studies took her to Spain and a dozen Latin American countries. Research from her field work on Urban Growth in Former Spanish Colonies ran in the United Nations publication Habitat Debate.

But it was a pair of summer college internships that cemented Ortiz’s career choice. The first was at Stockbridge, Massachusetts’ Chesterwood estate and museum, the one-time summer home and studio of American Renaissance sculptor Daniel Chester French. There, she regularly raided the attic library. “I picked up a book on the Main Street Approach and saw some of the things I had wanted to do with Guayama,” she recalled. “Finding that, I knew what I wanted to do.” The second internship came the following summer at the National Main Street Center, then in Washington, D.C., which champions downtown and neighborhood commercial revitalization. “From there,” she said, “you couldn’t hold me down.”

Following graduate school, Ortiz started as a project manager for Jonathan Rose Cos., which specialized in sustainable renovation of mixed-income housing. “It was a dream job; everyone wanted to work there,” she said. “I didn’t have the networks and professional relationships to grease the wheels for me. They took me on anyway.”

Since then, the well-traveled Ortiz has led hundreds of community retail and mixed-use planning efforts. After a decade owning her own advisory and working tirelessly with governments, nonprofits, developers and various main street and community programs, another opportunity arose. Ortiz was offered the chance to meld skill sets with the nationally acclaimed Streetsense, an interdisciplinary strategy, design and retail solutions collective and consultancy. “It was the next important dimension in my professional journey,” she said. “They have great leaders who offer thoughtful guidance to clients and always tell them the truth. It was the right fit.”

Ortiz was en route to ICSC’s Las Vegas event in May 2019 when Streetsense informed her their deal was a go. “I was in the air when I sold my company,” she said. “I knew I’d have great news for everybody when I touched down.” At Streetsense, Ortiz leads the Public Non-Profit Solutions team supporting public sector leaders, institutions and business improvement districts in commercial real estate market and development strategies.

An Engaged Leader and Community Member

To give back and further her own learning, Ortiz has been active in dozens of board roles and volunteer/advisory posts over the years. She is co-chair of the national ICSC Community Advancement advisory committee and of the Regional Plan Association’s New York committee, and she is a commissioner on the Leadership in Place Management certification program, the nation’s first certification program for the place management profession.

Previously, Ortiz served as a state co-chair and divisional chair of ICSC’s P3 Retail program, helping to advance public-private partnerships. Additionally, Ortiz was a board member of both the International Downtown Association and the Coro New York Leadership Center, the latter of which provides training to business leaders seeking innovative solutions to public challenges and issues.

In 2022, Ortiz’s work was awarded the International Downtown Association’s Pinnacle Award. The American Planning Association also recognized her with an Excellence in Economic Development Planning Award, and she has earned the Robert W. Ponte Award for her contribution to New York City’s economic vitality.

Ortiz also led in the development of post-Hurricane Maria destination plans for the Foundation for Puerto Rico, a comprehensive effort recognized with a Gold Award from the International Economic Development Council. She was instrumental, as well, in the design and execution of the Massachusetts Baker-Polito administration’s Rapid Recovery Plan, developing COVID-recovery strategies for 124 communities, with allocations of millions in federal funds for recovery efforts.

Ortiz penned her first book, Real Estate Redevelopment and Reuse, for IEDC and has written numerous IEDC journal articles. She also co-authored an ICSC publication: Improving Tenant Mix: A Guide for Commercial District Practitioners.

Ortiz also is a regular speaker and panelist at ICSC meetings and other organizations, including the Center for an Urban Future, where she recently lectured on the timely topic Keeping NYC Competitive in an Age of Hybrid Work. She has taught Downtown Economic Development at the Pratt Institute and is a guest lecturer at Harvard and several other universities. “I love talking about my work and the methodologies we’ve developed,” she said. “Teaching is a way to spread the word to the next generation. I feel what’s missing in real estate education today is guidance on the unique ecosystems of urban places.”

Ortiz has never been shy about networking. “I’ve always believed in putting myself out there. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

She feels that Latino and Black people remain significantly underrepresented in the industry. “We still struggle in access to networks and professional relationships,” she said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, I am the only Latina in the room.” Ortiz hopes to work toward a remedy via ICSC’s Community Advancement advisory committee.

Ortiz enjoys spending time with her 14-year-old son and traveling to historic cities. Ultimately, she said: “My work is my hobby. I enjoy it immensely. It’s part of my DNA, interacting with people who are as passionate as me about this field.”

Among her most-inspiring career mentors, she said, was Kate Coburn, founding partner of Economics Research Associates and former Cushman & Wakefield director of retail services.

Solution-Oriented

Ortiz remains bullish on post-COVID downtown redevelopment. The problematic new normal of excess retail and office space downtown and the shortage of affordable housing in the U.S. are ultimately solvable, she said, “but we have to let go of every rule we’ve ever given ourselves. With a little creative thought, one use can become another.”

The future of downtown environments remains dynamic, she stressed. “People are still social beings who want to get out of their homes and find mates and start families — the “sex will save the city” maxim, she chuckled. “Gathering places remain important because we still want to be with other human beings. You can’t rock climb at home.” She summarized: “We have to lead with our humanity.”