On a April 4th and 5th seniors Jake Brassard, Kevin Carnale, Theo Felopulos, and Chris Walker competed in the 10th annual Mulroy Real Estate Challenge hosted by Villanova University. The UConn student team came in second out of the 30 teams that entered, from universities such as the Wharton School, Penn State, Baruch College, the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill among others. 

The Mulroy Challenge is a development based case competition held in Philadelphia. This year's case was a development site on the Delaware River waterfront in the Old City submarket of Philadelphia. The team proposed a multi-phase, low density, and mixed-use development of office, retail, and multifamily with outdoor dining, green spaces, and parking. It was imperative that the teams considered how to integrate the development with the multi-acre public park being developed adjacent to the site. 

The UConn team's presentation included market research, underwriting the financial performance of the development, determining fair ground lease payments, identifying the proper hold length, and then calculating the levered returns that could be expected from the sale. At the competition the team pitched their proposal to panels of real estate professionals for 20 minutes, and then took ten minutes of questions. 

The top three teams included: 

Pennsylvania State University, University of Connecticut and  Florida State University 

Congratulations to the team for their hard work and successful presentation.

On April 1, 2019 the University of Connecticut hosted the "Putting Humans in the AV Driver's Seat, Autonomous Vehicles, People, Policy & Law. The event was organized and sponsored by the Transportation Technology & Society (TTS) Research Group and Travelers Institute.  

The event drew nearly 150 people.  Panelist and speakers were as follows: Carol Atkinson-Palombo, Co-Director of Transportation Technology & Society Research Group, UConn, Joseph MacDougald, Executive Director of Center for Engergy & Environmental Law, UConn. 

Keynote: Harriet Tregoning, Director of NUMO - the New Urban Mobility Alliance, Norman Garrick Co-Director, Transportation Technology & Society Research Group, UConn.  

Panel 1 - Inside the Vehicle - Kerry Marsh, Professor of Psychology, UConn, Neville Stanton, Professor of Human Factors in Transport, University of Southhampton, UK.  Wendy Ju, Assistant Professor at Cornell Tech.  

Panel 2 - Around the Vehicle - Peter Kochenburger, Deputy Director of the Insurance Law Center, UConn, Peter Sexton, Associate General Counsel, Travelers Insurance; James Anderson, Director of Justice Policy Program, Rand Corporation; Michelle Raue, Vice President, Lyft. 

Interactive Lunch, Rebecca Townsend, Professor of Communications, University of Hartford. 

Panel 3 - Norman Garrick, Peter Norton, Associate Professor, Engineering & Society, University of Virginia; Kristopher Carter, Co-Chair of the Mayo's Office of New Urban Mechanics, Boston, MA.

Town Hall Session: Lucy Nalpathanchil (Host of Where We Live) NPR Connecticut.

Carol Atkinson-Palombo, Adam Blank, and Jackie Lightfield.

We would like to thank everyone for joining us and making this a very success event.