Joe and I broke into a sprint as we left Georgia Tech’s architecture school and raced to my car. We were rushing to mail our submission for the Urban Land Institute’s Hines Urban Design Competition before the deadline that day. Some trivial last-minute revisions held us longer than desired, but for now I could only focus on salvaging our effort. In my head I traced a route to the UPS Store: Tenth Street would be faster. No, definitely Sixth then Peachtree. Whichever way, we were in a serious hurry; my heart pounded a steady staccato as I watched the time vanish.

This was the frenzied denouement of a fortnight spent working on the Hines competition, a real estate challenge endowed by renowned developer Gerald D. Hines. Last October, Joe, a friend of mine in the MBA program at Georgia State, alerted me of the contest and asked if I wanted to participate. Truthfully I didn’t really take a close look at the competition criteria before agreeing to do it, but two items did pique my curiosity: Teams are required to have five graduate students representing at least three different degrees, and the winners receive $50,000. We set off to recruit potential team members and ended up with two architecture students from Tech and Joe’s ex-classmate, an urban-planning student from Florida.
When the challenge arrived, it quickly became obvious that this competition would be nearly impossible without a multi-discipline squad. The ULI charged the participating teams with crafting a 10-year development plan for a 75-acre site south of downtown Denver and demonstrating how it will adapt to lifestyle preferences in the year 2050. We had 14 days to devise a strategy, illustrate the utility and aesthetic appeal of our concept and bring it to life with financial projections showing a healthy economic pulse. The complexity and breadth of this challenge dwarfed anything I had ever seen in traditional business case competitions, which now seemed rather two dimensional.

If it sounds like a lot of work, well, it was. Rumors circulated that some schools give their teams a two-week hall pass to focus exclusively on the Hines contest. Although we didn’t have that luxury, we did share a mutual commitment to producing a winning entry. When we met to brainstorm a strategy, a fervent discussion ensued on everything from the turn radius of our parking decks to the feasibility of dressing the entire district in vegetation. (That wasn’t exactly what I envisioned when we talked about green building, but I’m just the number cruncher, what do I know?) Perhaps our creative capacity was a bit excessive: We applauded every novel idea until our site bulged with the world’s next 27 architecture wonders. Passersby probably thought we were designing an amusement park.

Eventually we settled on a plan and set off to work independently. The designers, Ross, Paul and Marcio, drafted site diagrams and cross sections of buildings, while Joe and I pored over market data and heaped together a colossal pro forma for our 30-some proposed structures. Our concept gradually took shape as we stitched together each component; after an exhausting 24-hour layout session, we anxiously watched the printer deliver our masterpiece.

Yes, we did make it to UPS in time and bellowed cries of relief when our package disappeared into the shipment bin. This week, the ULI announces which four finalists will travel to Denver and pitch their proposals in April. Although the contest has been largely dominated by Ivy League teams in years past, we are optimistic about our motley collection of grad students and the extraordinary submission we produced. It added grandeur to fantasies about frolicking in $50,000 of cash before thousands of envious onlookers. Let’s hope it becomes a reality.

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