Liz Rooks, Former Chief Operational Officer and Executive Vice President of the Research Triangle Foundation, joined twenty real estate professional women to share her experiences about her 25-year career at Research Triangle Park (RTP) including the redevelopment effort at Park Center and the 2012 RTP Master Plan.  Liz retired from the Research Triangle Foundation in December of 2015 and has truly left her mark on the park to be enjoyed by all, especially the more than 20 miles of jogging and bike trails in the Liz Rooks Trail system!
 
Interviewed by ULI Member Caren Howley from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, Liz was asked to give an overview of her professional career and immediately stated, “It really is amazing how much happenstance can make an impact on your life.” Liz attended UNC and was a member of the second class of freshman women to attend the university. She decided to go to graduate school for City Planning at Georgia Tech, because, as she quipped, “At that time, the first question typically asked to women during the interview process was still “Can you type?” After graduation, she came back to North Carolina and worked as a long range planner in Chapel Hill. Liz stressed that the relationships, conversations, and network that you build throughout your career are so important, particularly in the real estate industry.

When asked about challenges she has experienced throughout her career and what advice she would give to women in real estate, she chuckled and said “You have to keep your sense of humor.” She described one instance where she and the male colleague who worked for her were in a meeting with a few out-of-town developers. The out-of-towners spoke directly to her male colleague and ignored Liz. At the end of the meeting, the male colleague turned to them and said, “Don’t look at me, she’s going to make the decision!” With the entire audience laughing, Liz said “Move forward with a good sense of humor and don’t let things like that bug you.”

Liz went on to list some of the difficulties associated with the planning and development of Park Center, a new mixed use area for RTP, which included: changing a state regulation which set up the park as a special tax district and only allowed for 25 residents within the Park; working with the tenants and owners association to update the restrictive covenants to allow for residential and mixed use within the Park; and the modification of the Durham Zoning Ordinance to allow for a new zoning district to be created for the proposed mixed use area of the Park. All of those efforts were in addition to first acquiring the right piece of land to develop into the mixed use area. Relationships and Public-Private partnerships were instrumental as Park Center was dependent on the City and State’s willingness to work with RTP on the updates to the zoning ordinance and the modification to the state regulation. Park Center will further add to the Park’s sense of place and sense of community and the Site Plan for the initial phase is currently under review. Liz cautioned that in order to stay relevant, RTP must continue to leverage relationships with universities as well as continue to foster the sense of community that comes with an involved owners association.

By Diana Brown, P.E., Kimley-Horn