Please join ULI Westchester/Fairfield.
In Honor of The 2025 Collins Award Winners:

Award Winners:

J. Michael Divney, P.E., AICP, LEED AP

&

Bruce Beinfield, FAIA (In Memoriam)

Beinfield Architecture

The Reception and Award Ceremony
Cocktails, Hors d'oeuvres, Dinner & Dessert

Thursday, October 30, 2025 | 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm 

Coveleigh Club 
459 Stuyvesant Avenue, Milton Point
Rye, NY 10580

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The Arthur Collins Sr. Visionary Award for Leadership in Land Use (The Collins Award) recognizes a person, team or organization whose efforts demonstrate a commitment to the highest standards of responsible real estate development in our region and embodies the ideals and mission of the Urban Land Institute. The mission of the Urban Land Institute is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.  The award honors the legacy of New York area developer Arthur Collins Sr., a longtime ULI member who is regarded as one of America’s most innovative real estate developers during the last half of the 20th Century. Past Award Winners are noted here.

About the 2025 Award Winners

J. Michael Divney, P.E., AICP, LEED AP 

Mike Divney is a professional engineer and certified land planner with over 50 years’ experience in strategic and land use planning, site engineering, project management and administering municipal entitlements.  He has been a Member of ULI since 1972, the year he initiated his private practice.  Mike is proud to acknowledge the influence that his long relationship with ULI has had on his professional development.  He credits ULI and its Members with helping him to build his professional practice on the belief that the interests of the private and public sectors can be blended for their mutual benefit and the interests of the broader community. 

Early in his professional career, Mike served for six years as the Director of Engineering and Planning for the White Plains Urban Renewal Agency, during which he directed the planning and engineering of the 130-acre Central Renewal Project in downtown White Plains.  That Urban Renewal Project was notable, in part, for the construction of significant infrastructure improvements (e.g. miles of new modern streets and tree-lined sidewalks, underground electric and telephone utilities, stormwater management facilities, sanitary sewers and public water supply) essential to the City’s long-range plan to transform a major portion of its obsolete and declining downtown to a modern mixed-use central business district and dynamic regional center.  The construction of high-rise office and retail buildings and shopping and commercial areas followed, with the result that the skyline of downtown White Plains was transformed and the City reasserted its role as a prominent regional destination.  Much has changed in White Plains since the Central Renewal Project, and it continues to influence the City today. 

Mike’s contributions to growth, economic development, health and social welfare continued after he left the public sector and entered private practice.  Mike was the founding partner of Divney Tung Schwalbe, LLP, a full-service Land Planning, Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Environmental Approvals and Entitlements Project Management Firm in White Plains.  In 2014, Mike formed Divney Strategic Advisors and remains engaged in providing advisory services to clients. Mike has helped guide a variety of project types including corporate headquarters, cluster housing, affordable housing, urban retail, healthcare, assisted living, entertainment, hospitality, business and corporate, and religious uses through strategic planning and engineering, municipal entitlements, and community outreach. Many of the projects on which Mike has provided services have ignited growth and economic development and responded to social needs and priorities in communities throughout the Hudson Valley, Fairfield County, the New York Metropolitan Area and other parts of the USA.

In addition to private practice Mike has been active in working with White Plains Hospital in a volunteer capacity as a Member of the Board of Directors, Chairman of the Board and currently as a Vice Chair. His expertise in engineering and planning has been helpful as the Hospital has modernized its facilities in downtown White Plains and expanded its outreach to the broader Hudson Valley.

Bruce Beinfield, FAIA

Founding Principal, Beinfield Architecture

February 12, 1952 - June 27, 2025

After obtaining his Master of Architecture from the University of Colorado in 1978, Bruce Beinfield returned to Connecticut in 1983 to establish what was to become Beinfield Architecture PC. He has built an idea-driven practice whose work is inspired by place, culture, and history. Quickly gaining a reputation for excellence in design and service, he has been the recipient of numerous design awards for his residential, commercial, retail, and restaurant work and has become an acknowledged expert in the adaptive re-use of existing buildings.

In 1997 Bruce received an AIA Special Achievement Award for Architectural Excellence for his visionary role in orchestrating the revitalization of the SoNo District in Norwalk, Connecticut. There he helped transform an urban slum into a vital, arts-oriented community, highlighting the history of the waterfront and infusing it with life. Beinfield has completed over 150 projects in that neighborhood for over 40 different clients and has effectively beaten back urban blight. His projects have included the adaptive reuse and preservation of historic buildings, as well as new structures that have mended the fragmented urban fabric. In the restaurants, offices, retail, residential, and civic buildings he designed, it was his architecture that spoke of renewal and it was the raw energy of his work that endowed the place with life. In 2008, Beinfield won an AIA award for the design of Kinetic Energy Sculptures to enhance connectivity between the Stepping Stones Museum for Children and the proposed Waypoint project.

Always concerned with place-making, Bruce has also recreated the village center of Rowayton Connecticut, where he has kept alive an endangered species of the 21st century, the small town. His contextual architecture has nurtured the unique village character of the community and has reinforced the romantic mythology of the pace. Rather than allow the village to be destroyed by indifferent development and big box competition, his work has fostered renewal and resulted in a revitalized community.

Bruce has acted as a visiting critic at the University of Colorado and Yale University. He is licensed in Connecticut and Massachussetts and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Review Boards. He has served as Treasurer to the Connecticut Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, on the board of directors for the Housing Development Fund of Fairfield County and the Stepping Stones Museum for Children.

About Arthur Collins Sr. 

For over fifty years, Arthur Collins Sr. forged a reputation as a man of vision and as a creative real estate developer. In the 1950s and ‘60s he led the development division of Collins-Tuttle and Laird Properties in New York City. Recognizing opportunities in suburban areas, he founded Collins Development in 1970 and developed the first condominium project in CT called Lyon Farm. His firm created mixed use developments in the waterfront communities of Harbor Plaza in Stamford, CT and Palmer Square in Princeton, NJ.  During his career, Mr. Collins oversaw the development of over three million square feet of office space and over 1500 residential units. With a reputation and expertise for bringing new life to downtowns, he redeveloped the historic buildings of Washington Street in Norwalk, CT and the JP Morgan estate in Princeton, NJ.  His commercial and residential projects have received numerous awards for the responsible use of land as well as captivating design. Arthur Collins Sr. died in 2005 and his legacy lives on.

Thank you to our 2025 Awards Committee

Neil Alexander

Art Collins Jr.

Jean Coney

Holly Hasbrouck

Stuart Lachs

Gerri Tortorella

Will Cannon

Mara Winokur

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