Building Resilience: CREW Miami Recaps a Powerful Panel
- wgclients01
- Apr 28
- 3 min read
On April 16, Commercial Real Estate Women Miami (CREW Miami) hosted its Lunch & Learn, “Building Resilience: Sustainable Real Estate Practices in Miami”, at the Mayfair House Hotel & Garden in Coconut Grove. The panel highlighted three leading women in South Florida’s sustainability movement, who are applying innovation, policy, and community design to future-proof the region’s built environment.
Patrice Gillespie Smith, President & COO, The Underline Conservancy; Shannon Wilson, Associate Director Mortgage Banking at Berkadia and CREW Miami’s 2025 Program Director; Anya Freeman, Founder & CEO, Kind Designs; Josie Legido Correa, Director of Business Development at JWR Construction Services and CREW Miami’s 2025 Board President; Dorota Lopez, CEO, GFD Group; and Marta Marello, Building & Energy Analyst, Office of Resilience Division, Miami-Dade County.
Dorota Lopez, CEO of GFD Group, moderated the discussion with:
Anya Freeman, Founder & CEO, Kind Designs
Marta Marello, Building & Energy Analyst, Miami-Dade County
Patrice Gillespie Smith, President & COO, The Underline Conservancy
Panel Highlights
Anya Freeman shared her journey from prosecutor to tech entrepreneur, driven by Miami’s recurring flooding. As founder of Kind Designs, Freeman is revolutionizing coastal infrastructure with 3D-printed “living seawalls” that are more affordable and eco-friendly than traditional concrete systems.
“My vision is really to make Miami an example to the rest of the world, because we're really the first city to face this challenge of flooding and rising sea levels at scale. And we're either going to be an example or we're going to be a lesson.”
Kind Designs has already deployed the world’s first 3D-printed seawall in Miami Beach, filtering 100,000 gallons of water daily with the help of over 2,000 oysters.
Patrice Gillespie Smith, a longtime advocate for walkable cities, emphasized The Underline’s role as a public-private partnership reclaiming 10 miles of land beneath the Metrorail to create green infrastructure, pedestrian and bike corridors, and art-driven community spaces.
“As a result of this ambitious mission, which is to transform the 10 miles beneath the Miami Metrorail, we are reclaiming the space for bicyclists and for pedestrians. We're ‘re-wilding’ Miami. Not many trees here anymore, but we’re changing that. By the time we're finished, 500,000 plants and trees will be planted, restoring the ecosystem. So we’re bringing back birds, bees, and butterflies that weren’t here or haven’t been here for decades, but are thankfully coming back thanks to that greenery.”
Three new segments of The Underline are slated to open by the end of 2025, extending the project’s reach from Coconut Grove to Dadeland.
Marta Marello, Building & Energy Analyst at Miami-Dade County, encouraged attendees to explore global best practices when thinking about energy-efficient development. Drawing inspiration from tropical climates more comparable to Miami, she shared an example from Singapore where a dated commercial structure was transformed into a model of innovation:
“A bank in Singapore [for example] retrofitted a 30-year-old building and transformed it into a net zero building. And so the way they were able to do that was to take 10% of the space that was previously air conditioned and make it open air and ventilated. And then, just by innovative engineering, tightening the building envelope, and other strategies, they were able to drastically reduce the energy consumption—the baseline consumption of the building—by 70%, so that the remaining 30% that is needed to cover the building is generated by the roof.”
The event concluded with an open Q&A, where attendees asked thoughtful questions about innovation, practical implementation, and how each speaker’s work contributes to a more resilient Miami.
Following the panel, guests enjoyed networking, reinforcing the #CREWFirst culture of building meaningful professional relationships. It’s part of CREW Miami’s mission to continue conversations around cross-sector collaboration, creative problem-solving, and the role women play in driving sustainable progress in the built environment.
Looking Ahead: Tri-County Signature Event – May 15
CREW Miami, in collaboration with the Fort Lauderdale/Boca Raton and Palm Beach/Treasure Coast chapters, will host “The Anatomy of the Deal” on Thursday, May 15 from 4:00 – 7:00 PM at Greenberg Traurig, P.A., in downtown Miami.
This Tri-County Signature Event, presented by FNF Family of Companies – Florida Agency, will walk attendees through the full lifecycle of a multifamily development deal—from land acquisition to entitlements, legal, design, construction, and financing.
To sponsor or attend, visit: miami.crewnetwork.org/events/2025/the-anatomy-of-the-deal
For more information, visit CREWMiami.org and follow @CREWMiami.