Program in Real Estate Conducts Site Visit for Real Estate Project Workshop Course

David Dise, Director of General Services, Montgomery County

Last week, Cornell’s Real Estate Project Workshop class traveled to Washington, D.C. to gather information and meet key players related to the redevelopment of Wheaton, MD. Lead by professors Mark Foerster and Isabel Fernandez, this diverse group of students began at the offices of Torti Gallas and Partners in Silver Spring, MD on Friday, February 4. During an array of presentations, the class met integral members of the public-private partnership that has been formed to redevelop selected parcels in Downtown Wheaton.

While at Torti Gallas, the class heard presentations from the following real estate experts:

- Robert Wulff, B.F. Saul Company: Client Needs
- David Dise, Montgomery County and Gary Malasky, Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority: Wheaton RFQ and Public Team Expectations
- Grant Montgomery, Delta Associates: Regional Economic Trends and Multifamily Housing Sector Overview
- Mark Carrier, B.F. Saul Company: Hotel Sector Overview
- Bruce Leonard, Street Sense: Retail Sector Overview
- David Machlin, CB Richard Ellis: Office Sector Overview
- Sandra Tallant, MD, National Capital Park and Planning Commission: Wheaton Sector Plan and Entitlement Process
- Thomas Gallas and Brian O’Looney, Torti Gallas and Partners: Land Planning and Architectural Design

Following the presentations, the class toured the central business district of Wheaton, and visited similar sites in the region on both Friday and Saturday. Steve Woodard, Masters in Real Estate 2011, says that “after gaining a deeper understanding of the numerous stakeholders and the needs of the client, visiting the site was the best way to fully understand the complexities facing this transit-oriented, public/private partnership.”

In the Real Estate Project Workshop course, commonly known as the “Capstone” course in Cornell’s Program in Real Estate, students work in teams over the duration of the semester on a real-world development project. Students create market studies, design concepts, financial projections, and scheduling assumptions to arrive at a final project that is a complete development prospectus for a real-world site. This year’s site is Wheaton, a large, urbanized, and unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Maryland. Part of the Washington, D.C. metro area, Wheaton is located two miles north of the I-495 Beltway and is on the Metrorail Red Line.

In planning this transit-oriented development (TOD), County, community, and business leaders aspire to achieve some of the successes that are seen in nearby places like Silver Spring and Bethesda, while preserving the unique and “funky” character of Wheaton. Balancing the above goals with market realities will be a challenge. To this end, the County and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority have hired the B.F. Saul Company to re-develop several key properties in the downtown area. The company has hired an outstanding team of architects and other consultants to assist it in formulating a redevelopment concept and plan.

Running in a parallel path to these efforts, B.F. Saul has also requested guidance and analysis from Cornell real estate and design teams about downtown redevelopment ideas. This assignment will provide the Cornell teams with a great opportunity to work with an excellent client, and to consider strategies about how to best create a “live/work/play” environment within an existing urban context.
To find out more about the Capstone course, please visit: http://realestate.cornell.edu/index.php/academics/core_courses/project_workshop/becoming_a_client_of_the_capstone_class

The Cornell Program in Real Estate offers a comprehensive, two-year professional degree in the field.  Students at Cornell benefit from an encompassing core curriculum combined with a rich, diverse selection of real estate electives allowing for niche specialization—all in close interaction with the largest on-campus real estate faculty in the country.  Cornell is also home to the Cornell Real Estate Council, an extensive network of industry leaders, the Cornell Real Estate Review, the Cornell Real Estate Conference, research and industry news, and more.

To find out more about Cornell’s Program in Real Estate, please go to http://www.realestate.cornell.edu