Land Title Guarantee Co. and NAIOP Colorado, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, will host the 14thannual Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge, culminating with the largest real estate event in Colorado Thursday, April 28.
The challenge is a premier real estate event featuring students from the University of Colorado and the University of Denver, as well as industry leaders in the Colorado real estate community. Building on the event’s 13-year history, the featured project will focus on Westminster Station in Westminster. Student teams will evaluate development opportunities on a 21-acre site adjacent to the station, which features transit-oriented development opportunities at the center of the South Westminster revitalization area. As part of the FasTracks project, the station and transit plaza will be a central hub within the surrounding 135-acre TOD area.
The challenge tasks more than 40 of the state’s best and brightest graduate students from CU and DU to evaluate and make recommendations for the site, owned by the city of Westminster. Students will form teams that will compete against one another for scholarships, future employment and the NAIOP Cup (awarded to the winning school each year). In January, student teams will begin a four-month period of working with industry professionals and the city of Westminster to analyze every aspect of the site.
Students will present their recommendations to the city and an audience of more than 750 real estate professionals during the April 28 event at the Marriott City Center in downtown Denver. Tickets will go on sale in early February.
Westminster Station is the first stop from Denver Union Station for the Regional Transportation District B-Line, which will eventually go to Boulder. Just 11 minutes from downtown Denver, the station is located just west of Federal Boulevard near 69th Avenue, between Interstate 70 and Highway 36. The station and adjacent 900-space parking garage are slated to open this summer.
The subject site encompasses unique challenges and opportunities for the student teams on how to transform a low-density industrial site into a higher-density, mixed-use TOD. Recently, the Federal corridor was named one of four “demonstration corridors” in the country ripe for reinvention as a healthy place with strong connections to surrounding communities.
The challenge site benefits from the city’s investment in new infrastructure as well as its dynamic community with distinct neighborhoods and a resilient local economy that includes: a spectrum of jobs; diverse, integrated housing; and shopping, cultural, entertainment and restaurant options.
“We are pleased to have a motivated project sponsor who is highly invested in the long-term realization of the ideas presented by the students through this challenge. This is exactly the type of project students would face once they graduate. This year’s challenge site represents a real-world scenario for putting all of the development pieces together on a catalyst project for a major metropolitan area,” said Kathryn Spritzer, chairwoman of the NAIOP organizing committee. “To be successful in this year’s competition, students will have to balance the interests of multiple stakeholders and address a broad range of issues, from economic development to active living and affordable housing.”
“The City of Westminster anticipates that the station will be a catalyst for private redevelopment surrounding the station,” said Mac Cummins, Westminster planning manager. “We believe that sponsoring the NAIOP Real Estate Challenge in support of the participating university students and programs will not only result in great ideas for the many redevelopment options associated with this significant 21-acre assemblage, but will shine a light on the opportunities available to development teams across the state.”
The outcome of the NAIOP challenge will help the city understand the various development options for the site and evaluate the cost/benefits of different ideas for this important real estate asset. Student teams will be responding to a request-for-proposals-formatted case statement that will weigh the strategic vision, economic realities and the environmental constraints of the site. City officials said they will be using this year’s challenge to help create a better understanding of the site development potential and are optimistic that elements of the outcome can be a part of what is ultimately built on the site.
