One-on-One with Jack Skelley

One-on-One with Jack Skelley
Interviewer: Davina Price

Urban Landscape, June 2009

Jack Skelley, in his role as Senior Vice President, heads up special projects for Roddan Paolucci Roddan Advertising, Public Relations and New Media. This includes creative concepting, copywriting, public relations, and editing the company’s online urban-design newsletter, The Hot Sheet. He has helped strategize marketing successes from the international unveiling of Natural Resources Defense Council headquarters (world’s highest-rated LEED Platinum building), to innovative campaigns for urban-infill developments (recognized with several national Bulldog Reporter awards). In addition, Skelley has over 25 years writing and editing experience for publications including Urban Land, Harper’s magazine and Los Angeles Times. Prior to joining RPR, he was Executive Editor and Associate Publisher of Los Angeles Downtown News. Jack currently is a contributing editor to the Modern Luxury family of magazines which include Angeleno, Riviera and Riviera Interiors on the subjects of travel, real estate, urban design and development.

When and why did you get involved with the ULI LA?
My association with ULI began as a contributor to the monthly Urban Land magazine. I started writing articles for the publication in 1999 – 10 years now! – covering architecture and urban design. It wasn’t until I was invited to some L.A. District Council events that I understood the wealth of talent and depth of programming of ULI Los Angeles. I said, “Wow! These guys are good,” and signed up with the Communications Committee ASAP. I have been providing public relations and communications services for the team since then. This includes a high degree of media outreach to the writers, editors and producers who cover business and real estate in Los Angeles and nationwide. I receive help in this outreach from my fellow Communications Committee members, and from the P.R. team at my office: Roddan Paolucci Roddan Advertising, Public Relations and New Media. My work for ULI is a pro-bono, volunteer effort.

What makes ULI valuable to its members and the public?
Of all the industry trade groups, and there are many, ULI represents the most high-level thinking and practice about land use. Because it has so many members, and because many of them serve in top industry positions, it embodies a kind-of self-correcting mechanism: steering recommendations about land-use issues to those that are most effective, practical, profitable and responsible. The last word, “responsible,” is key, because ULI has always been about the “responsible use of land.” That includes land-use that is, as much as possible, environmentally sustainable. If urban design is not sustainable, it is not good design.

In this challenging environment, how does ULI provide even greater value?
ULI’s wealth of programming and prospects for interacting with professionals are more valuable now than ever. First of all, if you happen to be out of a job, the ULI Los Angeles events are excellent settings for networking or hearing about opportunities. Also, ULI Los Angeles has an extremely active and influential group of committees. One of these is bound to address an issue or industry niche that can be helpful to you or your company. My advice is to volunteer on a committee. Get involved. Make something happen. It’s during a distressed economy when, traditionally, the landscape shifts. ULI helps you shift it in your favor.

In fact, our Communications Committee is very interested in adding talented marketing professionals to our team. I welcome anyone with such an interest to contact me at JSKelley@RoddanPaolulcci.com.

How are you surviving in this down market?
My firm is surviving by helping other firms survive. Traditionally, a down market is the best time to capture market share, since that’s when your competitors may be retreating from the marketplace. I helped create for Roddan Paolucci Roddan a set of advisory Survive & Thrive “marketing guides” that show businesses cost-effective ways to get and keep clients and customers. (The free downloads are at www.SurviveAndThriveRPR.com). The marketing guides include many, varied examples from the world of real estate and development.

Transitioning from real estate to hospitality was one of Roddan Paolucci Roddan's strategies to survive and thrive. How have you done that?
Despite the disasters in the real estate market, our client base still includes a healthy share of residential developers, designers and homebuilders. That said, we saw the writing on the wall more than two years ago. It told us to diversify our client base. It is a natural leap from marketing housing to marketing hospitality. Both are forms of development that rely on strong and compelling place-making: creating a sense of a place – how does it look, feel and live – which can include naming, theming and branding. We have successfully transferred those skills toward the hospitality arena with current clients that include: the new Terranea Resort by Lowe Development (on the former Marineland site in Rancho Palos Verdes); the historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in downtown Riverside; the Riverside Convention & Visitors Bureau; Bahia de los Suenos resort in Baja Sur, Mexico; and the Mandakota resort on the island of Lombok, Indonesia. In most cases our work has involved internet marketing, public relations and branding. With Mandakota, it has been a fascinating process of not just creating a name and marketing theme for the place, but an entire branding platform – or “brand architecture” as it is called – that will ultimately extend to everything from the signage to the colors of the towels.

How has the growth of the international market impacted Los Angeles, the hospitality industry and the real estate industry in general?
Of course, hospitality has been hurt severely by the recession, along with every other form of real estate. There was a period last year where international buyers were helping to keep residential real estate afloat. These included affluent parents of so-called “parachute kids” from Asia who work or go to school in Los Angeles while the parents remain based in Japan, Korea or China. That, too, popped with the rest of the real estate bubble. But I think all of us – especially if we continue to support each other’s businesses and morale – will come out of this recession stronger. Because the previous foundations of the economy have proved to be faulty, the recession may create a realignment of urban design toward dramatically more sustainable ways of living: higher densities, crucial transit-oriented development, more affordable housing. These are all issues, of course, that ULI Los Angeles has very much been leading, with programming such as the Infrastructure Summit, Emerging Trends reports and the 1000 Homes project.

What role will green building play in the economic outlook for the coming years?
The green building movement is essential, and has really taken off, with LEED standards (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) increasingly impacting the construction of both commercial and residential buildings. Our P.R. team has been working closely on these issues with Cuningham Group Architecture (whose Board Chairman John Quiter has been involved in ULI Los Angeles’ UrbanPlan program). Cuningham Group’s restaurant design team, for example, recently redesigned the Old Country Buffet chain’s interiors to make them both more energy-efficient and more profitable. But just as important as green buildings are green neighborhoods, and entire green regions: A comprehensively sustainable approach to development. ULI’s recent “Developing Green” conference in Los Angeles included a forum on “Green Neighborhoods: A Cost-Benefit Analysis.” The U.S. Green Building Council, for example, is now unveiling the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system that should be a part of any environmentally and economically sustainable future. I wrote about this trend briefly on TheHotSheet blog which I edit.


Is it true you were able to work with Leonardo Di Caprio and Robert Redford on a green building project?
Yes, it was the unveiling of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) headquarters in Santa Monica. DiCaprio and Redford supported the creation of this project. Roddan Paolucci Roddan strategized and launched this project in the media in 2004: The highest-rated Platinum green building at the time. We created a series of media events revolving around the support of these two men. But the exceptionally high level of interest in the building transcended even that kind of star power. We developed extensive, international coverage from the real estate and design media.

You're a published author, poet and musician - what body of work are you most proud of and why?
Thanks for asking about that. In addition to The Hot Sheet blog and other publications, I contribute regularly to Urban Land and am a contributing editor to Riviera magazine, writing about urban design. I’m currently working on a new book of poems called Product Placement. The poems are playfully satirical explorations of the role that marketing – and pop culture in general – plays in our lives. I try to squeeze in time for music as well, and will release a song on iTunes at the end of the year. But you can see that song and a short performance I did with my 10-year-old daughter, Claire, on YouTube now.

Do you often perform with your daughter?
Not as much as I’d like. Claire is getting to be a good singer and performer. It won’t be long before her little brothers – twins Bram and Paul – join her in starting some kind of band… just like her father likes to do. We all sing together at home and at church. (It’s not as geeky as that sounds! My kids are definitely rockers.) If there’s one good thing to come out of this recession, it’s that it has somehow brought people closer together.

Davina Price provides professional real estate services for sellers and buyers with Shorewood Realtors. Prior to selling real estate, Davina worked as a consultant specializing in affordable housing development. As a lifelong resident of Southern California, Davina can put her insider knowledge to work in finding a special property in your neighborhood of choice. Holding a Bachelors degree in Communications from USC, Davina understands the importance of new media in marketing your property to the widest range of qualified buyers. Contact her today for help with buying, selling or leasing homes at davina.price@shorewood.com.