That’s a wrap! Today concluded our UrbanPlan unit with Professor Daniel Wright and his students at UNC Charlotte. UrbanPlan is a challenging team building exercise that aims to develop land use professionals and moves students from a theoretical understanding to understanding the practical realities and demands of the process. It is a 12-15 hour unit where students address challenging financial, market, social, political, and design issues, develop a pro forma, and create a three-dimensional model of their plan.

The students started the module in late October and are each assigned a “Role” – Financial Analyst, Marketing Director, Site Planner, City Liaison and Neighborhood Liaison. They engaged in multiple group sessions as well as two interactive facilitation sessions with ULI Charlotte members. During the facilitations, the member volunteers challenged the students to think more critically about the UrbanPlan issues and the specific responsibilities of their assigned roles. At the end, the teams presented their proposal to a “City Council” of ULI members that awards the development contract to the winning team.

As Daniel Wright notes, “We had an amazing UrbanPlan experience at UNC Charlotte!  We had five different facilitators and three city council members who helped undergraduate students in the Belk College of Business broaden their perspective of community development and understanding of the motivations and expectations of various stakeholders.  They had conversations about both equity and economics.  Students loved the chance to explore real life situations with Legos and interact directly with industry professionals.  Their educational jump from basic real estate knowledge to complex community analysis in the short course of a month was exciting and impressive and attributable to the great work of ULI.”

Congratulations to our winning team,  Ace Developments ( for being awarded the development contract by City Council and to all the students for their amazing work over the past few weeks! Visit ULI Charlotte’s Instagram for pictures from this event!

Thank you to Professor Daniel Wright and to all the member volunteers (see list below) who participated!

Kyle Baugh Kimley Horn
Jeff Cernuto Princeton Communities
Shannon Frye Charlotte Planning Design & Development
Alexis Kaiser JLL
Rachel Russell Krenz Ram Realty Advisors
Timothy McCollum Resolve Residental
Grant Meacci Cole Jenest & Stone
Danny Pleasant

Learn more about UrbanPlan here. Interested in getting involved? Contact Ariel DiDonato at [email protected].