A team of students from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, won the top award at the 23rd Annual ULI-Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition for its design-and-development scheme to transform a former power plant in Cleveland into a mixed-use community.
For the contest that was open to graduate and fourth-year undergraduate students, ULI worked with the site's owner, Industrial Development Advantage, to create a plan with input from local stakeholders that would address housing affordability, equity and sustainability, while offering access to the lakefront and connectivity to adjacent communities. The Harvard-MIT team created a vision for the site called "Lakeshore." The five members of the winning team were Maurice el Helou, Thomas King, Eno Chen, Nathaniel Chavez-Baumberg and Joshua Udemba.
"We set out to create a project both ambitious in vision yet firmly rooted in Cleveland — transforming a site that once generated electrical power to generate power again, but now through building community agency and ownership," Chen said in a LinkedIn post. "We wanted to create enduring opportunities for existing residents."
The "Lakeshore" proposal stood out for its thoughtful integration of mixed-use development, dynamic placemaking, community connectivity, and sustainable infrastructure," jury Chair Thomas Hussey said in a statement. Hussey is a principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago.
The winners received a $50,000 prize from an endowment funded by Gerald D. Hines, the late founder of global real estate firm Hines and a longtime ULI leader. The other three finalists representing Georgia Institute of Technology and MIT each received $10,000, and another $10,000 was spread among teams earning honorable mentions, ULI said.