FOUNDER
A LIFELONG PURSUIT
My name is Dustin Sommer, and I founded The Development Studio to create vibrant walkable urban places.
Some of my earliest curiosities were about how cities were built, and I deliberately sought out a unique career that would let me do exactly that.
Following that intuition, I’ve stitched together a a rare combination of architecture, engineering, and development experience into a single practice.
Composing a Walkable Urban Practice
My career has been focused on one thing: building an advanced walkable urban real estate development practice.
These are some highlights from that journey, applying specialized capabilities across more than $250M in development.
2004 - 2009
ENGINEERING DISCIPLINE
TRANSIT SYSTEMS AND LAND DEVELOPMENT
B.S. Civil Engineering, Michigan Technological University
Transit system consulting internship at Lea+Elliott, San Francisco, CA
Land development internship at Kimley-Horn in Phoenix, AZ
President’s Award for Leadership, Michigan Tech’s highest honor
2009 - 2012
CREATIVE EXPANSION
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Trained Where Walkable Urbanism was Invented
Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development – joint program across the Ross School of Business, the Law School, the Ford School of Public Policy, and Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning
2010 National Prize winner Gerald D. Hines Urban Design Competition (Seattle, WA)
Studied under Chris Leinberger and Doug Kelbaugh
Masters Thesis “Drossing Urban Fabric” in the Urban Externalities Studio under Kathy Velikov with critique and intellectual lineage from Lars Lerup and Alan Berger
2012 - 2017
NATIONAL EXPERIENCE
MANAGER OF DESIGN AND ENGINEERING, NATIONAL HERITAGE ACADEMIES
Developed National Portfolio — Across the Process
$150M+ of work across 15 new 50,000 SF builds in four states reporting directly into the C Suite
Pioneered the big-box conversion playbook for charter school facilities
Supported 70+ operating school facilities across 4.0M SF in nine states during major national portfolio standardization effort
Managed multiple prototype designs and teams across the country
2017 - 2022
SOLO AT THE HELM
FOUNDER, AmbitEDU
Delivered Blue-chip Facilities Advisory as an Independent Founder
Served clients from California to Washington, DC
Associate for Facilities at the National Charter Schools Institute, the preeminent leader in charter school governance
2022 - PRESENT
STUDIO LAUNCH
FOUNDER, THE DEVELOPMENT STUDIO
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WITH AUTHORSHIP ACROSS THE ENTIRE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS.
Built a coast-to-coast bench of 50+ accredited investors
Studies the urban fabric to find opportunities others overlook
Orchestrating the development process with authorship from thesis to delivery
Building a generation portfolio of assets for communities partners
