The selection of four finalist teams for the 2019 ULI Hines Student Competition took place February 11 and February 12 at ULI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The jury, chaired by ULI Foundation Governor Alex Rose, evaluated 90 entries for this year’s competition challenge, which involves linking the central business district in Cincinnati, Ohio, to the downtown waterfront using a decked highway.

The four finalists are: two teams from the University of Texas at Austin, one team with representatives from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, and one team from the University of Cincinnati. The teams consist of five graduate students, representing at least three different disciplines of the land use and real estate industry.

Rose was impressed with the sophistication demonstrated in the proposals, which the teams prepared over 15 days following receipt of the competition briefing materials on January 14. “What I find inspiring is the level of knowledge, creativity, and the volume of analyses that the students were able to produce without actually seeing the site, and their ability to synthesize all of that very quickly,” he said.

The four teams will compete in the competition’s final round April 3-4 in Cincinnati. The winning team will receive $50,000; the remaining teams will each receive $10,000.