Matthew Kelly Speaks at MIT/CRE's 2006 Commencement
September 2006
Matthew Kelly, Vice President of Real Estate Strategy and Development for Walt Disney Imagineering, addressed the MIT Center for Real Estate's graduating class at the 2006 Commencement exercises. Drawing on his experience with Disney's Celebration Company, Kelly urged the graduates of MIT/CRE's Master of Science in Real Estate Development program to create a vision for the communities they develop, and to leave a positive, lasting legacy.
As President of Disney's Celebration Company, Kelly has guided the development of the town of Celebration, an award-winning large-scale master-planned community located 15 minutes south of Orlando. More than a design, Celebration is "a vision grounded in reality," Kelly said, and he described the town's planning, development, and ongoing community life to share this vision with the MIT graduates.
Celebration's planners began their project by borrowing designs from uniquely American communities. Studying the towns of Nantucket (Massachusetts), Savannah (Georgia), and Coral Gables (Florida), they created a new kind of model community with a distinctly American spirit – "a traditional American town built anew."
Kelly emphasized the level of detail required to plan the new community. Celebration's master plan was remarkably meticulous – so much so that it took 18 months to complete. And designers created detailed 3-D renderings to show potential commercial clients a "fly-by" view of the streets as they would appear to a driver in a moving car.
Like many pre-WWII American communities, Celebration's development was based on a "pattern book" – a style guide for the town that determined how streets should be configured as well as the kinds of structures that should be built on those streets. The result is a style for commercial buildings now known as "Celebration Modern" – a streamlined variant of Art Deco.
Celebration's planners were guided by several principles, and primary was to engender a sense of community. "How do people interact and relate in town?" Kelly asked. "What do people do in a town?" Planners considered carefully the physical elements necessary to a meaningful community life – those places in town where people could "leave memories." Designers also planned for community groups such as garden clubs and Rotary Clubs, as well as "places to volunteer to help neighbors and the less fortunate."
Another principal behind the town's planning was the idea of community health. Not only did planners design appealing routes for walking and bicycling, they also designed an exceptionally attractive local clinic and hospital. "People go to lunch at the hospital," Kelly said. "The facility looks more like a hotel than a hospital!"
City planners were also guided by the importance of lifelong learning. "Education in Central Florida is a challenge," Kelly said, and to meet that challenge, Celebration partnered with the local school district to open a new kind of school – one central to the town's sense of itself. "The school is in the center of town," Kelly said, "not at the edge." Additionally, planners recruited local universities to offer classes ranging from arts and piano instruction to classes in an MBA program – an initiative to encourage lifelong learning among Celebration's citizens.
Finally, and of special interest to MIT's new graduates, town planners designed with an eye toward technology. Although the town's architecture hearkens to pre-WWII America, Celebration embraces modern technology through contemporary building techniques and ready access to electronic communications. "We wanted places to live and work," said Kelly. "It's a real town – where people are born and can live their whole lives."
Kelly humorously noted that in spite of meticulous planning, the reality of community life and free market enterprise frustrated some of the planners' innovations. For example, Celebration's designers had planned the community with a small-town bookstore. But the appearance of a competing Barnes and Noble quickly put the independent bookstore out of business.
Designers had also expected that their thoughtfully conceived pedestrian pathways connecting residential properties with schools would encourage parents to walk their children to school, which would limit motor vehicle congestion. But residents have resisted walking. "People use their cars," Kelly said. "There's a traffic jam at 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m."
Kelly closed by quoting former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who had envisioned Celebration as being "a place worthy of Walt Disney." According to Kelly, the town has realized that vision. "We have left a legacy," Kelly said, and he urged the graduates of MIT's Master of Science in Real Estate Development program to do the same. "Leave a legacy," he said, "build a great place."
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Mr. Kelly was the 22nd speaker to deliver the MIT/CRE Commencement address since the Center opened in 1983. Other recent speakers have included Nori Gerardo Lietz, Managing Director and co founder of Pension Consulting Alliance, and Dr. Hong-Bin Kang, Vice-Mayor of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and onetime President of the Seoul Development Institute.
