MBA students from the University of Colorado at Boulder and University of Denver will square off on Wednesday, May 12, to see who has the best development plan for one of the premier sites in downtown Denver.
The Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge will be held at Invesco Field at Mile High beginning at 5 p.m. The competition will put Leeds School of Business real estate students and Daniels College of Business students on a collision course to see whose plan to develop the Tabor Center II site will win out.
The event, while open to the public, does require a registration fee to attend.
After a semester of internal competition by CU and DU teams, the winners from each school will present their plans to maximize the potential of the Tabor Center II site. Located at the corner of 17th and Larimer streets, Tabor II is one of the premier sites for development in downtown Denver's business district, which makes the competition a great opportunity for the students, according to Byron Koste, director of the Leeds School Real Estate Center.
"It's not often that students get to show off their skills in front of an audience of 300 people from an industry in which they are looking for a job," said Koste, who also teaches the CU course and is the team's coach.
To prepare for the competition, CU-Boulder students took the spring 2004 Real Estate Project Competition class. During the semester they learned how to determine a property's highest and best use, create a sales plan and prepare a real estate financing package.
The site was originally designed for development of a high-rise, but has remained vacant for many years, according to Koste. "For 20 years this tower has been waiting to be built, and these students think they have a solution," he said.
Judges from the event's sponsor, the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, will pick the best development plan. The winning team will receive $2,500 and the runner-up $1,500.
In 2003, the CU-Boulder team beat out DU with its plan to convert a 50-acre portion of the Gates Corp. facility on South Broadway in Denver into a mixed-use, transit-oriented urban village.
For information or to register call (303) 782-0155 or visit the Web site at .