Tysons Corner Site the Focus of 2008 Capstone Course
Second-year students apply their knowledge to Tysons Corner site, mixed-use project
Each spring, second-year students in the Program in Real Estate get the opportunity to apply all that they have learned to a real-world site, working over the course of the semester to complete market studies, design concepts, financial projections, and scheduling assumptions to arrive at a final project that is a complete development prospectus. The Project Workshop course, commonly called Capstone, is taught this year by Henry Richardson, professor of architecture, and Mark Foerster, Executive Vice President of Northern Capital Group and recently appointed Olson Faculty Fellow. The site is 2.2 acres located in the heart of Tysons Corner, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and is owned by Macerich, a publicly-traded retail REIT.
Working in teams, the students are given the freedom to determine the market opportunity and decide on a program that is reflective of the highest and best use of the site. The four teams this year are proposing mixed-use programs that range from a hotel, condo, and retail combination, to a vision for a new public library and residential tower. The scope of the project provides the students with flexibility in terms of design and real estate product type.
A trademark of the course is collaboration between undergraduate architecture students and the PRE students. In recognition of the fact that architecture and real estate development are closely linked in the real world, the class serves as a laboratory for discovering how to effectively communicate between these two groups of professionals.
At the beginning of the semester, the class traveled to Tysons Corner to conduct market research and hear presentations from local market experts. Stephen Fuller, a faculty member of George Mason University in the School of Public Policy and an expert on economic and public policy trends in the area, addressed the evolution of the Washington D.C. economy and the future outlook for the area economy. Brokers from CB Richard Ellis briefed student on the performance and the state of various real estate sectors within the Washington D.C. area. Students also had the opportunity to meet with a transit-oriented developer to understand the importance of public transportation and its direct relationship to real estate projects. The second day of the trip gave students the opportunity to visit the surrounding suburbs of Clarendon, Ballston, Rosslyn and Reston.
Class participant Veta Martin commented on the benefits of the course, saying, “The project-based class really focuses on enhancing both our practical as well as our theoretical knowledge base and skill set, and there is no better way to tie together all that we have learned in the past year and a half than in the Capstone course. Everything from market analysis and design, to financial feasibility and entitlements, students have the opportunity to apply their skills and affect every area of the project in a very real way, and in much the same way as will be expected of us once we enter the workforce.”
In preparing the project deliverables, the teams create site analyses, a market analysis, a development concept, a specific program of goals, a basic outline of design concepts, and a detailed financial analysis. The site analysis addresses topics such as the topography and transportation access of the site. The viability of various real estate sectors, such as hotels, residential, and office, are addressed in the market analysis performed by the students. Students must provide the basic development hypothesis of the site by justifying the appropriate mix of real estate product types and the allocation of land for each product type. A vision statement that addresses neighborhood concerns must be created by each group of students for their proposal. The culmination of this project will result in a final presentation and report to representatives of Macerich and faculty from Cornell University.
Henry Richardson is an award-winning professor of architecture in the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning as well as a licensed architect, a nationally certified city and regional planner, and an international consultant. Professor Richardson emphasizes that the project can be considered a thesis for graduate students in that it integrates everything that graduate students in the architecture and real estate programs learned. He notes the teamwork required by the project and the amalgamation between professions to make the project work. The architecture students provide the shape and form of the real estate development projects, while the real estate student provide the development strategy and analysis.
Mark Foerster is Executive Vice President of Northern Capital Group, Inc., a real estate investment, management and development company based in Rochester, New York. From June, 2005 through May, 2007, he was Executive Vice President of Macerich East Development, LLC, Macerich’s east coast development affiliate. In that capacity, he worked to obtain government approvals for the rezoning of Tysons Corner Center, a super-regional mall located in McLean, Virginia. As a result of this rezoning, this 80-acre mall property will be transformed over a period of years to include a transit-oriented, mixed used development of 3.5 million square feet. Currently, he is also the interim CEO of the Farash Corporation, a Rochester-based corporation that owns 5,000 apartment units and 400,000 square feet of commercial space in New York and Florida. Prior to joining Northern Capital and Macerich, Foerster practiced real estate law in Rochester for over two decades, first as a Partner with Harris Beach, then as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Wilmorite Properties, Inc. He is a graduate of Davidson College and the Syracuse University College of Law.