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Pedestrian zones in Seattle and Europe

Korbi Wenzl, who is undertaking a join Masters degree with the Runstad Center and the University of Regensburg in Germany, recently contributed to a piece for The Urbanist.  Read his interpretation on how American retail differs from the market in Europe here

Lead with your heart

Runstad Center faculty member Deborah Scaramastra talks about the importance of using your heart when making job choices, read her Linkedin post.

Silhouette of George Washington statue, University of Washington, Seattle campus on November 20th, 2013. Photo by Katherine B. Turner
Silhouette of George Washington statue, University of Washington, Seattle campus on November 20th, 2013. Photo by Katherine B. Turner

2017 NAIOP Real Estate Challenge

MSRE 2017 Candidate Sean Durkin shares his thoughts on the NAIOP Real Estate Challenge. This unique competition is the framework for the Real Estate Development Studio, a course requirement for the development option in the MSRE curriculum.

The likely winning team debates potential layouts for the Translink site in Coquitlam, BC Disclosure: This picture is of the authors team
The likely winning team debates potential layouts for the Translink site in Coquitlam, BC Disclosure: This picture is of the authors team

This year’s NAIOP Real Estate Challenge takes University of Washington Runstad Center development-focused students to Coquitlam, British Columbia to compete against the Portland State University and University of British Columbia real estate development students.

The subject site, surrounded by heavy and light rail as well as a 20-terminal bus roundabout, is currently operated as a park & ride. It is owned by the Canadian government’s transit arm, TransLink, and is ripe for a re-imagination, the focus of the competition.  The challenge includes aspects of public and private collaboration, new development analysis and underwriting, phasing, costs of construction, market analysis and forecasting, and financial feasibility analyses.  Thanks to The Runstad Center, second year students have been well-educated in these aspects and will bring a diversity of ideas and work experience for a responsible, transit oriented, development. With foreign tax laws and market cycles, Greater Vancouver offers students an unfamiliar market to enthusiastically tackle.

Under the direction of Runstad professors Al Levine and Pike Oliver, students are responsible to gather and verify market data and site information in order to deliver an economically viable development project that will beautify the transit station and rider’s experiences, continue to offer park and ride potential, benefit the community, and attract a for-profit developer.

With UW being four-time victors of this 14-year development competition, competition is high amongst the class with three internal teams independently developing a plan of action. Students will vote on the most viable work and unite late in the quarter to all work on finalizing the design and deal structure that serves TransLink, an outside developer and the community best.

Are you on the Washington Chapter NAIOP email list?  Look for the blast email from Seattle’s NAIOP chapter to register for the Seattle March breakfast event where teams from each school will present their proposals and a winner will be announced.

 

MSRE Info Session February 8th!

Interested in applying to the Master of Science in Real Estate program? 

The Runstad Center will be holding an information session in downtown Seattle on February 8th.  Please join us for an informal conversation about the MSRE program and application process.  Runstad faculty and staff will be on hand to speak about the program. This is a great chance to get answers to your questions and probe the opportunities that real estate can add to your education and career.

MSRE INFO SESSION 
Feb 8th 5:30 pm
520 Pike, 12th Floor Auditorium
RSVP: bestm2@uw.edu

 

2017 CoreNet Recipients

On Tuesday, CoreNet recognized the 2016-17 scholarship recipients at their January luncheon.  Congratulations Eric Jacobs, Lori Shannon, Adam Boyd, Matthew Ricci and Tak Stewart.
We are so grateful to the CoreNet Seattle Chapter for their continued support of our students.

corenet-luncheon-scholarship-awardees-2017
Eric Jacobs, CoreNet University Relations liason Scott Carter, Lori Shannon, Adam Boyd, Matthew Ricci

Runstad Center Mentors

Runstad Center mentor Joe Polito recently took his mentees on a project tour of Tilt49. Tilt49 is a mixed-use residential and office property, under construction in the Denny Triangle.  The project includes 11 floors of office with 31,000 SF floor plates, a 7,000 SF deck on level 9 and a lobby featuring food retail and other “pop-up” retail spaces.  Kristen Jensen from Touchstone, Kyle Paulsen and Ian Knowles from Mortenson Construction lead the tour.  Our mentors are an invaluable resource for our students, providing career path advice and hands on exposure to real world projects.  Click here for the bios of all the 2016-17 Runstad Center mentors.

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Kristen Jensen of Touchstone, MSRE Candidate Taryn Rehn, MSRE Candidate McKenzie Darr, Ian Knowles from Mortenson Construction, MSRE Candidate Fred Levine, MSRE Candidate Luqi Chen, Runstad Mentor Joe Polito from Touchstone, and Kyle Paulsen from Mortenson Construction

Faculty Search

The University of Washington’s Department of Urban Design and Planning and the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies are seeking applicants for two Assistant Professor positions and one Associate Professor position for the MS in Real Estate.

The appointments will be on a 9-month (100% FTE) basis with salary commensurate with qualifications and experience. Qualified candidates will hold a doctoral degree or foreign equivalent in a related field with expertise in at least one of the following areas; housing, real estate development, real estate finance and investment or corporate real estate and possess a record that demonstrates promise as a researcher and scholar.

Candidates for the Assistant Professor positions should be prepared to teach real estate courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Expertise in affordable housing and housing policy would be viewed favorably for the Associate Professor position. Follow the links below for full descriptions as well as application instructions.

Real Estate Associate Professor

Real Estate Assistant Professor

Not your dad’s aurora

We conclude our series from the ULI Fall Meeting with one more from Faculty member Pike Oliver…

During a session at the 2016 Urban Land Institute (ULI) Fall Meeting there was a session about the ULI Healthy Corridors project. It is an effort devoted to finding viable strategies for transforming unsafe, unattractive, and poorly connected commercial corridors into thriving places that further the goal of creating healthy and economically vibrant communities. Don Eernissee, economic development director for the City of Shoreline in our area, gave an overview of the Aurora Corridor Project, which transformed a retail strip into a business-friendly multimodal main street.

Shoreline was a bedroom community “with no heart and no town center,” he said, until the city embraced a three-mile north–south stretch of Highway 99 and invested in making it a main street. Over ten years, the city spent $140 million, or $4,400 per foot of frontage, on transit improvements such as safe crossings and sidewalks, business-access transit lanes, cohesive connections, protected bike lanes, stormwater management, and decorative lighting.

Walkers, bikers, and bus drivers love it, said Eernissee, as do retailers like Trader Joe’s. As a result of the improvements, the corridor saw a 56 percent reduction in accidents involving injuries. Ridership on the bus rapid transit (BRT) system shot up 50 percent along the corridor, which benefited from more frequent stops and a new “healthy, egalitarian, BRT lifestyle.” Improvements have led to “corridor living,” with development of 350 housing units replacing a single-story restaurant on a one-acre (0.4 ha) lot. A marketing campaign, “Not your Dad’s Aurora,” has helped change perceptions about the safety and attractiveness of the corridor within and beyond the community.

The ULI Fall Meeting, a great networking experience

MSRE Candidate Eric Jacobs recently attended the ULI Fall Meeting and shares his thoughts/fears on networking, a necessary skill in the world of real estate...

“Networking” has always been a bit of a scary word to me. It conjures up images of awkward conversations, exchanging business cards with strangers and trying to “sell” oneself. Those aren’t situations where I tend to be comfortable. The ULI Fall Meeting promised to be chock full of those sort of interactions so I had a certain amount of trepidation going into the week.

Thankfully, with the help of the MSRE staff and my friends and classmates, I never felt the need to put myself into awkward situations. Instead, I was able to “customize” my networking experience into situations where I felt comfortable and confident in my ability to put the best (and most genuine) version of myself forward.

Starting the week off with a tour worked well as it allowed us to meet people in a relaxed setting, whether watching longhorn steer being herded down a Ft. Worth city street or sampling a variety of Texas whisky at a cool outdoor bar. I made friends in a relaxed setting with natural conversations about who we are, what we did, where we were from and our differences and similarities. As other people from the group were doing the same we were constantly being introduced to new and interesting people.

As the week went on, different events were set up during the day where we met local real estate leaders and essentially got to grill them for helpful information. We could ask as many questions (or as few) as we felt comfortable. It was another great way to get to know contacts who could be a big help now, or down the road.

Finally, our last night in Dallas we headed out to a northwest networking event. Our little crew of Washingtonians piled into a random limo, jumped onstage and sung with a local bar band for a song or two and generally engaged in the sort of good-natured shenanigans that create lifetime bonds.

When I got home I thought about the great time I had before realizing, much to my chagrin, I had been networking the whole time. Oh well. Thank you so much to the staff and sponsors that made this trip possible for all of us!

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