While the 13th year of the Utah Real Estate Challenge (UREC) looked a little different than in the past due to COVID-19, an unparalleled amount of ingenuity and creativity prevailed in all nine 2020 teams and their designs.
On May 1, DISC Development claimed the $20,000 grand prize for their design, Edison Tower.
Runners up from last year’s UREC competition, Team DISC Development, which included Eccles School students Scott Rojahn (Finance BS, Marketing BS), Cole Macadaeg (Finance BS, Marketing BS), Daniel Popowski (MSF, MRED) and BYU student Karsten Rasmussen, showed true “doer” spirit and determination to come back and win the challenge after taking home second place last year. Their design, Edison Tower, is an innovative and environmentally friendly mass timber real estate development that features multi-family apartments, office space, and creative ground floor retail use.
“I loved being able to see everyone come back from our defeat last year and be able to pull it off this year,” said Macadaeg after being announced the 2020 winners. “It just feels so good. I have no words,” added Rojahn.
The second-place team, CCSQ, also included two Eccles School MRED students Carl Spikner and Spencer Jolley along with their Utah State University teammates Amy Cervantes and Joshua Quigley. In third place were BYU students David Egbert, Taylor Lind, David Bogdan, Brock Gardner, and Enoch Yiling Sng, representing TEDD Partners.
DISC Dev.
Scott Rojahn, Cole Macadaeg, Daniel Popowski, Karsten Rasmussen
CCSQ
Amy Cervantes, Joshua Quigley, Carl Spikner, Spencer Jolley
TEDD Partners
David Egbert, Taylor Lind, David Bogdan, Enoch Yiling Sng
This year, nine teams with students across the state participated in the competition. Unlike previous years where groups chose their own site to develop on, all teams were required to create plans for the same site located at the NW Corner of 300 S. and 200 E. in Salt Lake City.
On Feb. 27, 2020, those nine teams presented their development plans during round one of the competition. From there, the top three teams were announced, including DISC Development, CCSQ, and TEDD Partners. They had the opportunity to work with mentors to further develop their plans and submit a 25-page business plan and a 10-minute video presentation to our judges. The judges evaluated each project on the vision for the development, analysis of the area, financial plans, project viability, and sustainability elements. The winners were then announced via a Youtube livestream on Friday, May 1. Congratulations again to DISC Development and all of this year’s participating teams!
A special thanks to all the UREC sponsors and judges that made this year’s challenge possible.
About the Utah Real Estate Challenge (UREC)
The Utah Real Estate Challenge is an intercollegiate real estate development competition for undergraduate and graduate students throughout the state of Utah. The competition fosters the understanding of real estate development by giving students the opportunity to prepare and present a real estate development plan to a panel of expert judges. A grand prize of $20,000 is awarded to the student team with the most promising and economically viable Real Estate Development Plan. Second and third prizes are $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. To learn more about the competition and how to get involved next year as a participant, sponsor or judge, contact MRED-Masters@Eccles.Utah.edu.