Abstract
The first decade of the 21st century has been characterized by an overall decline in both financial markets and real estate markets. These related declines have been attributed to inefficient land utilization, speculation, and questionable lending practices. This study focuses on the role of land utilization and examines whether or not the recent increase in mixed use development activity is due to synergies associated with such development. By applying the Fama-Macbeth procedure to estimate rolling alphas rather than rolling betas we find positive and significant alphas for a zero-investment portfolio long on mixed use development firms and short on focused development firms. These positive alphas and related results suggest that there are synergies associated with mixed use development. Therefore, future development projects should consider the mixed-use alternative.