Garcia Gerardo

Gerardo Garcia

Founder, Urbanism Bureau

Gerardo Garcia is the founding member and principal of the Urbanism Bureau, a planning, urban design and development advisory consultancy.  Gerardo’s professional training and leadership in public interest design, have allowed him to spearhead Chicago’s most innovative planning and urban design efforts. In his prior leadership roles in city government, he was responsible for ensuring that Chicago’s economic development goals were supported by thoughtfully designed buildings that enhance neighborhoods where it matters most: on the streets and sidewalks where people live and work.

Gerardo’s planning and design leadership has supported over $14B in economic development for the City of Chicago – all characterized by community-driven engagement and the use of design excellence as an economic development tool.  His contributions include the City’s “West Loop Design Guidelines,” adopted by the Chicago Plan Commission in 2017, which created a framework for new construction that seamlessly blends with the Fulton Market historic district. His subsequent design and planning leadership produced more than $500 million in new mixed-use projects along South and West side commercial corridors that had not seen substantive new investment in decades.

Gerardo has taught at the College of Urban Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Illinois

Institute of Technology. He has also been a guest critic and guest lecturer at various schools and professional associations. His work has been presented at the NYC Mayor’s Office for Long Term Planning and Sustainability, Columbia University, and the Roddom Institute in Ukraine. Gerardo holds degrees from Syracuse University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, where he received the Lowenfish Memorial Prize.