UrbanPlan hosts an annual National Student Competition in which high school students from across North America compete for a development contract from the fictional city of Yorktown. In UrbanPlan, students are tasked with redeveloping six blocks in the fictional neighborhood, Elmwood. The student’s fictional companies must balance historical preservation, dereliction, and competing neighborhood priorities, along with financial constraints to meet the needs of the city. 

For the National Competition, students must think on their feet as they respond to a memo issued by the city that alters the game. In 2022, The UrbanPlan team partnered with The Lotus Project to create an RFP focused on fighting homelessness in the Elmwood community in requesting that developers include additional affordable/attainable housing from that the original RFP required. In 2023, the RFP focused in on sustainability and green/open space and asked developers to present a proposal with at least 40,000 sq. ft. of green park space on their site plans. In 2024, students were tasked with responding to declining office occupancy rates by prioritizing mixed-use spaces and limiting total office space to 230,000 sq ft. Winners were awarded a share of the $10,000 prize. 

Mike Zane, a teacher at Kalani High School, Honolulu, Hawaii, considers the program an extension of students’ learning in the classroom. “The National Urban Plan Competition gave students an opportunity to dig deeper into the political, social, economic, as well as design aspects that goes into public and private real estate redevelopment efforts they did not consider while involved in their classroom/ school level experience of Urban Plan.  It has been wonderful to see the tremendous growth these students have had in the short amount of time in preparation for the national competition.” 

Funding for this competition was generously provided through a donation to ULI’s Annual Fund from ULI Trustee Emeritus and ULI Foundation Governor Ron Nahas, partner, Rafanelli & Nahas LLP, Lafayette, California. 

• UrbanPlan RFP 
• 2020 National Competition Video
• 2020 Addendum to the RFP
• 2022 Addendum to the RFP  
• 2023 Addendum to the RFP 
• 2024 Addendum to the RFP
• UrbanPlan Elmwood RFP
• LOTUS letter to Developers

Summer 2024 winners:

• First place: Io Developers, The Iolani School (Honolulu, HI)
• Second place: Lavander Developers, Kalani High School (Honolulu, HI)
• Third place: Metro Visionaries, Brooklyn Technical High School (Brooklyn, NY)