Sharon Woods is the founding Principal and President of LandUseUSA | Urban Strategies. Her specialty is studying the lifestyle preferences of migrating households, forecasting market opportunities, and developing strategies for cities, urban planners, and developers. She focuses on target markets and their cravings for downtown shopping, urban housing formats, placemaking amenities, and social interaction.
Sharon is an active proponent and advocate for urbanism, placemaking, and aesthetics through good building form and design. She contributes to the urbanism cause by developing housing and residential market studies, retail market studies, and land use strategies. Her personal mission is to inform and encourage communities, developers, and investors on ways to create vibrant urban places that are engaging while helping them intercept target market households who are on the move across the nation.
Sharon serves as a faculty member with the Incremental Development Alliance, a non-profit and volunteer-based organization focused on teaching developers how to reinvest into their communities, and with small projects that incrementally add value. She is also serves as the Vice President for the Michigan Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism; and on the Resource Council for Smart Growth America's Form Based Codes Institute. Last but not least, she also serves on the Board of Directors for her local Downtown Development Authority (Laingsburg DDA).
Sharon began her career with twelve years in leadership positions at four Fortune 500 retail corporations; and developed expertise in location intelligence, site selection, revenue forecasting, and market analysis. She grew up in the Historic Seward Neighborhood of Minneapolis and has worked in four downtowns, including Minneapolis (Target), Cincinnati (Macy's), Detroit (GM), and Lansing (consulting). These urban places were inspirational, and in 2000 she decided on the career change that has enabled her to make an invaluable contribution to the urbanism cause.
Areas of expertise: site selection, location analysis, site planning, market research & analysis, lifestyle preferences
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