The Real Estate Center relies on financial support from the professional real estate community in order to provide valuable student services and programs that enrich the students' academic experiences and prepare them to make a seamless transition into the workforce.

Sustaining Sponsors play an active role in shaping the real estate industry's future professionals--from mentoring to guest lecturing in the classroom to participating as panelists at conferences--the Sponsors are vital to the success of the real estate program at DePaul, and the Center is continually recruiting new partners.

The Real Estate Center recently added Michelle Armstrong, Director of Real Estate at Kindercare, to the Sustaining Sponsor list. According to Armstrong, she decided to join the DePaul team "so I could continue the encouragement of a new group of commercial real estate professionals in the same way that I was accepted and helped many years ago."

Armstrong didn't hesitate to get involved and volunteered her time to participate in this year's 14th Annual Collegiate Real Estate Conference where she served on the Corporate Real Estate panel and shared her career experiences at Kindercare where she finds and successfully negotiates new center openings for the Eastern portion of the United States.

For 14 years, students and their advisors from a variety of Midwest colleges and universities participate in an annual Collegiate Real Estate Conference at DePaul University.

More than 130 students from University of Iowa, Marquette University, Indiana University and the University of Illinois came to DePaul University on Friday April 13 to participate in this year’s program.

The heart of the program is a series of 50-minute breakout sessions organized by career field and led by over 40 senior level real estate professionals. Students select three out of seven sessions to attend. In these sessions experts, including many DePaul alums, offer insights and answer questions on topics ranging from commercial real estate brokerage and development to finance and corporate real estate.

One of the popular sessions focused on corporate real estate. Leading off the discussion the moderator, Drew Priest from the Chicago Chapter of CoreNet Global, asked the panel for a good working definition. 

Nestor Eliadis, Senior Director of Real Estate for Walgreens, and a DePaul alum, said that the role of corporate real estate is to represent the real estate interest of a corporation. He went on to say that doesn’t always mean there is a transaction, but more typically means applying standards to implement specific corporate strategies.

In summing up the Collegiate Real Estate Conference, Michael Goodman, the President of the DePaul Real Estate Club, said the event, one year in the making, “met and exceeded my expectations.”

“This was an incredible opportunity for individuals; it supports what DePaul is trying to do and helps all of us to see what we can do in the future.”

View more photos here .

In the next week you will get an email soliciting your participation in a Chicago Mid-Year Market Sentiment Study being done by The Real Estate Center. Watch for it; engage with it; submit it. The findings will be released at the end of June.

In January of 2017,The Real Estate Center partnered with the ULI Chicago Chapter to launch the first ULI Chicago Cohort Masters of Science in Real Estate program. The first class will be graduating this June, so the Center is in the early stages of recruiting students for the second cohort which will begin in the Fall 2018 Quarter. Students enrolled in the ULI Chicago Cohort must be members of ULI Chicago and will receive a 25% tuition discount, are not required to take the GMAT and will work through the program with the same network of students in each class and will thereby complete the program with an existing professional network. 

If you're interested in launching your career in commercial real estate, sign up to attend our next information session on May 15th from 5:30-6:30 at DePaul University, 1 E. Jackson Blvd.