ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development
Honoring Visionaries Who Inspire Great Places
2025 ULI Prize Winner – Carol Coletta
Learn more about the 2025 laureate in the press release.
2026 Schedule
May-July 2026 – Jury Selects and notifies Laureate
Summer/Fall 2026 – ULI announces Laureate
*Due to the number of nominations we receive, we do not notify nominators whose nominees are not selected. The jury may reconsider any nominee in a future year.
Nominate a laureate for the 2026 ULI Prize by filling out the submission form here or search ‘uli.org/prize2026’ in your web browser. ULI is accepting nominations for the 2026 ULI Prize Laureate until December 31, 2025. Click here to preview the Nomination Form. Please email us at [email protected] with any questions.
About the Prize
The ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development is the most prestigious and respected award in the land use planning and development community. It encourages developers, redevelopment planners, and community leaders to think more deeply about how urban development affects our quality of life and helps to build the spirit of community and of the neighborhood. It encourages innovation and creativity yet returns to the core principles of quality, beauty, and permanence.
ULI awards the 100,000 USD prize annually. The Nichols family endowed the Prize in the year 2000 by a gift to the ULI Foundation from the Miller Nichols Living Trust and the Miller Nichols Charitable Foundation.
The Prize will be given to one or more living persons who, individually or as a representative(s) of their organization, have made a most distinguished contribution to community building across the Americas, who have established visionary standards of excellence in the land use and development field, and whose commitment to creating the highest quality environment has led to the betterment of our society. If the Prize is awarded to more than one person, those persons must have worked collaboratively or collectively on the work the jury is recognizing, and they must be connected by a contractual relationship or through a legal entity, e.g., a partnership, limited liability company, or corporation.
The Prize will spotlight individuals and organizations that have been on the cutting edge, employing innovative processes, techniques, strategies, and insights to encourage and to achieve the highest quality in development practices and policies at the national or local levels. The Prize will reward accomplishments that honor diversity of land use, design, mobility, lifestyle, population, culture, and race; and it will reflect an awareness of changing technologies and their impact on a sustainable future for our communities. In sum, the award will be a highly visible symbol focusing public attention on the importance of true visionary community development, reinforcing and encouraging quality of life and smart growth for the 21st century.
Nominate the Next Laureate
Nominees are not limited to a specific discipline and may include developers, public officials, educators, authors, journalists, researchers, artists, urban planners, technologists, activists, architects, or landscape architects, among others, from around the globe. The prize cannot be awarded posthumously. Nominees do not need to be a ULI member. See the How to Nominate page for more information.