Awards & Competitions

2023 ULI Awards Overview

For decades, the Urban Land Institute has set the standard in recognizing outstanding real estate development projects, related programs, and visionaries in urban development. ULI’s awards programs are highly selective and provide a prestigious reference for professionals involved in the built environment. Winners and finalists benefit from worldwide recognition among influential leaders in fields related to real estate and urban development.

ULI recognizes a wide range of project types, sizes, and initiatives in its award programs—from housing to commercial and mixed-use development and new communities, from open spaces to policy initiatives, both for profit and nonprofit.

Teams of experts serve on the jury for each program. These multidisciplinary groups typically include developers, planners, architects, public officials, community representatives, and other professionals as required by the award criteria.

Awards

Competitions

  • ULI Hines Student Competition
    An urban design and real estate development competition that challenges graduate students to collaborate across disciplines and imagine a better built environment.
  • ULI Hines Student Competition – Europe
    An exciting opportunity for university and business school students across Europe to work in teams to engage in a challenging exercise in responsible land use.
  • ULI Hines Student Competition – Asia Pacific
    An urban design and real estate development competition that challenges graduate students to collaborate across disciplines and imagine a better built environment.

Honors

  • ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development
    The ULI Prize recognizes an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to community building globally, who has established visionary standards of excellence in the land use and development field, and whose commitment to creating the highest quality built environment has led to the betterment of our society.
  • ULI Apgar Thought Leader Awards
    Awarding emerging writers and experts an honorarium for thought leadership in Urban Land magazine.

Please note that several ULI District Councils manage a variety of award programs at the local level. Questions or comments regarding any of these specific programs are best directed to the specific ULI District Council responsible for them.

THE ULI AWARDS TEAM:

ULI Main Phone: 202-624-7000

The Terwilliger Center for Housing manages the Annual Housing Awards (the Kemp, Larson, and Terwilliger Center awards). Learn about the Terwilliger Center team on their website and contact them at [email protected].

  • Christopher Ptomey, Executive Director
  • Rosemarie Hepner, Senior Director
  • William Zeh Herbig (AICP), Senior Director, Homeless to Housed
  • Fabiola Yurcisin, Manager
  • Jane Hutton, Associate

For the ULI Hines competition, email: [email protected].

For other global or ULI Americas awards, email: [email protected].

Cindy Chance

Executive Vice President
E-mail: [email protected]

As Executive Vice President at ULI, Cindy is a member of the leadership team of the institute with responsibility for ULI Product Councils and ULI’s growing global education programs: the Awards program, University Connections, Professional Courses and Certificates, and UrbanPlan. A non-profit leader with over fifteen years of executive management experience, Cindy’s background is higher education, where she began her career as a professor and Associate Dean at Trinity (Washington) University, a minority serving institution. Cindy went on to work for over a decade supporting faculty diversity, leadership, and strategic program growth at her alma mater, Georgetown University, first as Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, and then as Assistant Provost for GU’s five Main Campus Schools. Most recently, Cindy served as Senior Associate Dean for the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, growing the school’s most entrepreneurial offerings, a 20 mil+ portfolio of non-credit programs with over 70 staff, including, the Summer School, the English Language Institute, the Global Education Institute, Professional Courses and Certificates, and the Institute for Transformational Leadership, the highly regarded leadership coaching institute.  Cindy has a PhD, MA, and BA from Georgetown.

Gretchen Sweeney

Vice President, University Programs and Awards
E-mail: [email protected]

Gretchen Sweeney oversees global and ULI Americas awards at the Urban Land Institute. These awards include the ULI Hines Student Competition, ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development, the ULI Global and Americas Awards for Excellence programs, and the ULI Apgar Thought Leader Award. She is also responsible for ULI’s University Connections initiative to support university faculty and programs in commercial real estate and connect students to ULI, commercial real estate, and related fields. University Connections includes programs such as University Partners, ULI Etkin Scholars, Undergraduate Virtual Program, University Forum, and the student tracks at Fall and Spring Meetings. Prior to ULI she was with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for eight years. At USGBC, she helped build and launch Arc, a data-driven technology platform for global benchmarking, analytics, and LEED certification for buildings and cities. Prior to Arc, she was Vice President, LEED Implementation at USGBC, where she managed the development of new LEED rating systems and served on the LEED Steering Committee. Earlier in her career she helped develop a voluntary sustainability certification for Maryland municipalities and worked in capital markets at an investment bank in Arlington, VA. She has a Master of City Planning and Certificate in Urban Design from the University of Pennsylvania, and a degree in Classical Languages from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA.

Eugenia Payne

Senior Manager, Awards
Email: [email protected]

Eugenia manages the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development, ULI Global and Americas Awards for Excellence programs and the ULI Hines Student Competition. She brings over a decade of experience in roles managing projects and grants for nonprofits focused on sustainable development in the southeastern US. Most recently Eugenia led the launch and awards process of a new annual community grant program in East Tennessee, distributing over $1 million in investments for outdoor and cultural assets designed to catalyze regional economic development. Prior to that experience, as Director of Research Programming at The Enterprise Center she helped implement a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish and pilot a smart city testbed for advanced technologies in the heart of Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Innovation District. Eugenia holds an undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston in Anthropology, and it is through that anthropological lens that she has published articles about sustainable design for general audiences. 

Mei Li Liss

Associate, Awards
Email: [email protected]

Mei Li is a graduate from the University of St. Thomas located in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. During her time at St. Thomas, she participated on the Women’s Soccer team. In the fall of 2019, before the start of Covid-19, she traveled abroad to London, UK, and studied at Richmond American University London. Previously, she has had the opportunity to work for JLL, one of the leading global commercial real estate companies, in different capacities that included property management and research. She became a facilities management intern on the UnitedHealth Group account and learned what is required to uphold a large-scale office building and how to effectively run one. Following UnitedHealth Group, she became part of JLL’s brokerage firm as a research analyst. In which she supported brokers through many different departments such as, tenant representation, agency leasing, and industrial.