Posted: May 19th, 2006

Best of the Best: ULI Announces Ten Winners of the 2006 Awards for Excellence: The Americas Competition

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Chief Facilities Executive Jim McConnell today announced that LAUSD was selected as a winner of the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Awards for Excellence: The Americas competition. This award is widely recognized as the land use industry’s most prestigious recognition program.

The competition is part of the Institute’s Awards for Excellence program, established in 1979, which is based on ULI’s guiding principle that the achievement of excellence in land use practice should be recognized and rewarded. ULI’s Awards for Excellence recognize the full development process of a project, not just its architecture or design. The criteria for the awards include leadership, contribution to the community, innovations, public/private partnership, environmental protection and enhancement, response to societal needs, and financial success.

“We are honored to have won such a prestigious award,” said McConnell. “This award symbolizes our continued commitment to not only relieve overcrowding and build schools for the students of LAUSD, but also to do it with a social conscience. Not since William Mulholland brought water to this city has there been a more important construction program in LA.”

Over the years, the Awards for Excellence program has evolved from recognition of one development in North America to an international competition with multiple winners. The ULI Awards for Excellence: Europe was added in 2004, and in 2005 the ULI Awards for Excellence: Asia Pacific and the Global Awards. Throughout the program’s history, all types of projects have been recognized for their excellence, including office, residential, recreational, urban/mixed-use, industrial/office park, commercial/retail, new community, rehabilitation, and public projects and programs.

The 2006 Awards for Excellence: The Americas winners were selected by a jury of renowned land use development and design experts: Jury Chair Isaac H. Manning, president, Trinity Works, Fort Worth; Vice Chair Lee T. Hanley, chairman/CEO, Vestar Development Co., Phoenix; Ronald A. Altoon, partner, Altoon + Porter Architects, LLP, Los Angeles; Barbara Faga, chair, EDAW, Atlanta; Richard F. Galehouse, principal, Sasaki Associates, Inc., Watertown, Mass; Timur F. Galen, managing director and global head, corporate services and real estate, Goldman, Sachs & Co., New York; Veronica W. Hackett, managing partner, The Clarett Group, New York; James D. Motta, president, The Motta Group; Fort Lauderdale; Frank Ricks, principal, Looney Ricks Kiss Architects, Memphis; William B. Renner, principal, EDSA, Fort Lauderdale; Robert M. Weekley, principal, Lowe Enterprises, Inc., Los Angeles.

The winners were announced during the ULI’s Spring Council Forum in Salt Lake City. “The Awards for Excellence program celebrates the creativity, vision, and best practices in land use,” said ULI Chairman Marilyn J.Taylor. “All of these projects represent the best examples of creative land use and planning.”

The 2006 winners were selected from 21 finalists. Projects were evaluated on the basis of financial viability, the resourceful use of land, design, relevance to contemporary issues, and sensitivity to the community and environment. Each contributes to a live-work-play environment and is designed to complement and enhance the greater community.

The 2006 Awards for Excellence: The Americas winners (developers in parentheses) are:
• Belmar, Lakewood, Colorado (Continuum Partners, LLC) A 2005 Award finalist that is converting a 1.4 million square foot regional mall into a 3.5 million square foot mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented downtown district.
• Ladera Ranch, Orange County, California (Ladera Development Co.; DMB Consolidated Holdings, LLC) A 4,000-acre new community that preserves 1,600 acres as open space with 8,100 single-family homes clustered in six neighborhoods and three multi-use districts with one million square feet of commercial space.
• Los Angeles Unified School District Construction Program, Los Angeles, California (Los Angeles Unified School District) The largest new school construction program in the country’s history with an $11.7 billion commitment to complete 150 new schools by 2012.
• Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Arizona (Mesa Arts Center) A first step in establishing an urban center with a performing arts venue and outdoor civic spaces. It has created a new perception of a downtown core for the state’s third-largest city.
• Montage Resort and Spa, Laguna Beach, California (The Athens Group) A 262-room resort hotel with a 7.25-acre public park and parking facility, and public access to a beach, on the site of a former 30-acre gated trailer park.
• The Presidio Trust Management Plan, San Francisco, California (The Presidio Trust) This 1,168-acre national park anchors the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Its management plan, projected to make the Presidio self-sufficient by 2013, is a model for balancing economic and preservation goals, and private and public interests.
• Prudential Center Redevelopment, Boston, Massachusetts (Boston Properties, Inc.) A redevelopment of a landmark 23-acre site adds 867,000 square feet of office, 149,000 square feet of retail, 132,000 square feet of residential, underground parking, and a new entrance to the MBTA subway. The infill integrates the site with its Back Bay neighborhood.
• Stapleton District 1, Denver Colorado (Forest City Stapleton, Inc.) The first phase (489 acres) of this 4,700-acre master-planned community contains four schools, 2,100 residential units, 100 acres of parks and open space and 320,000 square feet of commercial space. Upon buildout, the former airport will include 12,000 homes.
• Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga, California (Forest City Commercial Development; Lewis Group of Companies) This 175-acre project provides a new downtown district for a community that had grown up without one, and is notable for its large-scale introduction of an authentic urban center by a private-sector developer.
• Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. (Washington Convention Center Authority) This 2.3-million square-foot center with a six-block footprint manages not to overwhelm its neighborhood. Much of the space is underground but has natural lighting, and exhibit halls are on multiple levels, which cater to its market niche of small, professional meetings.

The ULI award is one more in a series of awards that the LAUSD has recently won, including the National Academic Decathlon championship and second-place finish at the National Science Bowl. Also, an unprecedented 32 LAUSD elementary schools won the 2006 California Distinguished School Awards by the State Department of Education. Another 52 of LAUSD’s Title 1 schools have been recognized by the California Department of Education for improving academic achievement in spite of difficult odds.

The Urban Land Institute is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide responsible leadership in the use of land in order to enhance the total environment. Each year, the Institute honors an extraordinary community builder through the Urban Land Institute J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. Established in 1936, the Institute has more than 30,000 members representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.