USC Team Takes Top Honors at NAIOP SoCal UCLA vs. USC Real Estate Challenge

After a presentation to a team of industry-leading judges, the five-member graduate student team from USC took home the silver shovel as the winner of the 27th Annual NAIOP SoCal UCLA vs. USC Real Estate Challenge. Held Nov. 21 at USC, the competition featured five-member graduate student teams from the Ziman Center of Real Estate at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business and the Lusk Center at USC’s Marshall School of Business and Price School of Public Policy in a battle to determine the highest and best use for a unique parcel of land in Southern California.

This year’s Real Estate Challenge competition site was a 9.27-acre parcel within the partial redevelopment of the broader 142-acre Raytheon Campus in El Segundo. USC’s winning proposal, titled “The Concourse,” featured a medical campus supporting retail and a modern data center and substation. The students’ proposed concept combines the needs of the community and ownership by improving the site with a financially viable mixed-use development. The USC student team included Austin Risley, Jonathan Moftakhar, Alexandria Gordon, Austin Adams and Sagiv Hartmayer.

The 2024 Real Estate Challenge judges included: Jason Bonomo, asset manager, MetLife Investment Management; Andrew Fogg, partner, Cox Castle; Chris Tipre, principal, Trammell Crow Company; Courtney Trujillo, president, SR Watt Company; Blake Rogers, senior managing director, JLL Capital Markets; Sergio Valenti, regional principal, Ware Malcomb; and Zach Zanolli, managing director, Longpoint Partners.

Pictured: The USC team.