UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Four Penn State Smeal College of Business undergraduate students banded together to finish second among 16 teams earlier this month at the seventh annual Villanova Real Estate Challenge.
Smeal’s team, which brought home the second-place prize of $3,000, was comprised of: Desmond Ellis, senior risk management-real estate major; Alexander Kholb, junior finance major; Collin Nutt, junior finance major; and Icy Trinh, senior risk management-real estate major.
The challenge was a real estate development case competition that centered on financial analysis and feasibility, with minor design features.
The team was tasked with providing Wildcat Partners, a private investment and development real estate firm with a bid/pass recommendation on a pair of defaulted loans consisting of a parcel of vacant land in the Potomac Yards Development Site in Arlington, Virginia. It provided comprehensive site, market, and financial analyses, coupled with an outline of the risk/return spectrum for a planned 200,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail project.
Teams were charged with submitting a PowerPoint presentation the night before. Each team then prepared a 20-minute presentation, followed by 10 minutes of questions from the panel of judges. Finalists were selected from the preliminary round presentations.