Nolan Zail
Tani Elliott
principals with principles
Impact Urban is led by Nolan Zail and Tani Elliott who have been collaborating since 2007 at Carmel Partners where they led the development of UC Davis West Village, a pioneering campus neighborhood celebrated as the nation’s first planned zero net energy community and recipient of the ULI Global Award of Excellence. They continue to advance innovation, sustainability and equity through developing paradigm shifting projects to demonstrate what’s possible. Their core competency is housing innovation through real estate development.
Nolan contributes over 30 years of experience in real estate development including design and construction, developing and re-developing residential, commercial, historic and mixed-use projects.
Nolan focuses on projects that integrate economic fundamentals with social and ecological principles. Nolan’s mixed-use and residential development experience includes founding principal of Transform Urban (CA), Senior Vice President of Development with Carmel Partners (CA) and development manager with Santa Clara Development Co. (CA). In addition, Nolan has commercial development experience with Cushman & Wakefield (NY) and non-profit housing redevelopment experience with Common Ground Community (NY). Prior to real estate, Mr. Zail has worked for award winning architectural firms on residential and commercial projects.
Nolan received a Master of Science (Real Estate) from New York University; a Graduate Diploma in Applied Science (Horticulture) from the University of Melbourne; and a Bachelor of Architecture from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Notable Projects include UC Davis West Village, Davis, CA; Grand Central Terminal Redevelopment, New York; Prince George Affordable Housing Redevelopment, NY and ACMI, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia.
Tani organizes projects and teams. She is driven by discovering, defining and realizing bold design and development goals to advance equity and sustainability in the built environment. She has a knack for finding the special ingredients for placemaking.
Her development experience spans the public and private sectors as well as partnerships between the two in university housing, mixed-income housing and waterfront development. She has coordinated student housing projects in Davis and San Diego with Carmel Partners; mixed-income housing in San Francisco, prefab modular housing in Sacramento and high-rise urban infill in Denver with Integral; and waterfront development as a Planner at the Port of San Francisco.
Tani earned her Master of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley and holds a Bachelor of Science in Community & Regional Development from the University of California, Davis. Tani serves as the Board President of her daughter’s co-op preschool in San Francisco.
