13th Annual Negotiating Real Estate Joint Ventures Workshop
On Friday, November 22, Columbia Business School welcomed more than 80 graduate students from real estate programs at Columbia, NYU, MIT, and Harvard for the 13th annual Coming to Terms: Negotiating Joint Ventures workshop.
Co-hosted by the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate and the MIT Center for Real Estate, this full-day workshop offered a unique opportunity for students to explore the complexities of structuring and negotiating joint venture agreements—essential skills in real estate investment and development. Special thanks to Tod McGrath ’84, Senior Vice President, Finance, at BXP, for his vision and leadership of this annual collaborative exercise for students.
Alexander Bodini Foundation Competition
Second-year MBA students enrolled in the Capstone: Real Estate Investment course compete annually in the Alexander Bodini Foundation Competition as their final capstone project. With generous support from Daniele Bodini ’72, this year’s competition marked its 26th anniversary and is a signature offering of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate and the MBA Real Estate Program.
First-Place Team: 2025 Competition Winners were Chris Byrns ’25, Haneke Manoharan ’25, Graham Murphy ’25. Executive Project Sponsor: Eagle Rock Properties
Shores Family Real Estate Fund
The Shores Family Real Estate Fund has been established through the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate to support students studying and planning for careers in real estate. The fund supports programming and helps the Center underwrite and offset direct expenses for students related to experiential learning initiatives.
The Shores Family Real Estate Fund has widened the opportunity to participate, to lead and compete, to travel, and importantly, to practice applying what has been learned while in business school. In the 2024–2025 academic year (AY25), the inaugural gift helped the Real Estate Association to lead two domestic employment treks to Chicago and Miami to learn more about the distinct features of those real estate markets and to participate in five National Case competitions.
In AY25, students competed in five case competitions throughout the country: the Berkadia & NYU Stern Multifamily Investment Case Competition, UT Austin National Real Estate Challenge, UNC Kenan-Flagler Real Estate Development Challenge, Northwestern Kellogg Real Estate Venture Competition, and Schulich School of Business at York University Developers’ Den Case Competition.
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Dickerman International Travel Initiative
The Ronald Dickerman ’87 Fund has been established through the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate to support international student travel opportunities led by The Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business. The fund aims to underwrite and offset expenses related to study tours, widening the experiential opportunity to participate in international travel while in business school, and introducing students to real estate markets and their unique complexities around the globe.
Designed to enhance the classroom curriculum, study tours offer students an intense, firsthand experience of the business culture of a chosen country or region to lay the groundwork for future international internships and careers.
With leadership and guidance from Professor Brian Lancaster, the second cohort of students eligible for the Dickerman Travel Fund award traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia in January 2025 through the Chazen Institute, the premier interdisciplinary hub of global business knowledge at Columbia Business School.
UAE and Saudi Arabia visits included NUWA Capital, ICD Brookfield Place, Jumeirah Group, Investment Corporation of Dubai, Atlantis the Royal, Museum of the Future, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa, Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, The Louvre Abu Dhabi, Abrahamic Family House, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, Olayan Group / Al Bustan Village, Diriyah Gate Authority, Saudi Arabia Tourism Development Fund, Desert Safari, Maraya, Hegra, and AlUla Heritage Oasis Trail.