The Bolles School hosted its annual UrbanPlan student leadership workshop on the Upper School San Jose Campus this spring, a five-week class that culminated in late-April with a presentation of projects. An outreach of Urban Land Institute (ULI), the program for juniors and seniors is offered at more than 30 high schools around the country. The 15-hour curriculum helps students understand the intricacies of designing “well-designed, market-responsive, financeable and buildable” commercial developments and in the end, help create more engaged citizens.

“Students form development teams to respond to a ‘request for proposals’ for the development of a blighted site in a fictional community. Each team member assumes one of five roles: finance director, marketing director, city liaison, neighborhood liaison or site planner. Through these roles, students develop a visceral understanding of how various market forces – supply and demand, availability of capital, risk vs. reward – clash and collaborate with non-market forces to create the built environment,” according to the UrbanPlan website.

At Bolles, the program is part of the “Studies in Leadership” class on the Upper School Campus. Throughout March and April, students have been meeting with Upper School Campus Assistant Head and course instructor Piper Moyer Shad ’91 and AP Psychology teacher Matt Toblin for hands-on work in the Varn Boardroom. They have hosted ULI member experts from the community who have helped develop the workshop as facilitators – vetting students’ projects and offering their input. The students’ final presentation to the “City Council” was April 29, when students defended their designs and decisions and lobbied their proposals.

The council included local building and development experts: Kathryn McKie, Regency Centers; Elias Hionides, PETRA; Taylor Williams, Walker & Dunlop; international planning and development professional David Van Horn; and Fontaine LeMaistre ’96, TIAA Bank. Bolles dad Bert Brown, a ULI volunteer and president of Meadows Incorporated, helped lead the program.

“Teams address challenging financial, market, social, political, and design issues, develop a pro forma, and create a three-dimensional model of their plan. At strategic times during the project, land use professionals, who have attended a full day of UrbanPlan volunteer training, interact with the student teams. There are two facilitations where professionals visit the teams and challenge the students on their roles, their vision, and the decisions they have made using Socratic interaction. The module culminates when the teams present their proposal to a “City Council” of ULI members that awards the development contract to the winning team.”

Following student teams’ presentations, the council selected one of the three group projects as the winner. Students on the winning team and their project job descriptions were seniors:

• Ridhi Harmani – Site Planner
• Gary Groudsky – Financial
• Thomas Karvounis – City Liaison
• Kelly Kim – Neighborhood Liaison
• Caedon Shockley – Residential Marketer
• Krithika Gangisetti – Retail Marketer