Student Housing Business is the voice of the student housing industry.
Issue link: https://studenthousingbusiness.epubxp.com/i/488341
SHB INTERVIE W MARCH/APRIL 2015 STUDENT HOUSING BUSINESS .COM 70 weekends. It's also a great security tool. We defnitely rely a lot on it. SHB: How did you get involved in student housing? Smith: While working at an architecture frm in Chicago's West Loop area, doing a lot of residential work, I was intro- duced to Tom Scott and CA to do the zoning feasibility for a 24,000-square-foot Burger King site (309 Green) in Champaign, Illinois. I took a few days to study the local codes and came up with a 24-story, boutique high-rise with a rooftop pool deck, 416 bedrooms and just six units per foor. I remember Tom being impressed with the ambition and equated the design of tower over podium to a building that he developed in Chicago's river north neighborhood. It was a match made in heaven and Tom made me an offer to come aboard CA as a project manager to help oversee the construction of that project in 2007. However, after a few years as a project manager and not understanding all the real estate acronyms being tossed around at CA, I felt I need- ed to do something more. Architectural undergraduate training doesn't really prepare one for the business side of the world. So while managing about $250 million in development from 2010 to 2012, I went back to night school and earned an MBA in real estate and fnance and that rounded out my tool kit and allowed me to make a nice segue from architectural draftsmen to leading a development team. Since that time in mid-2007, we have now developed about 30 properties and over 12,000 bedrooms on about 25 campuses and haven't looked back. It's been a fun ride, I would say. Through our trademarked "Next Level of Student Housing ® ," Gilbane Development Company has successfully delivered over 4,000 beds of student housing. Our single-source, turnkey development program includes equity financing, construction and development of exceptional student housing and allows us to provide The Next Level of Student Housing ® to each of our residents. www.gilbaneco.com/development Russell Broderick Vice President 401-456-5897 rbroderick@gilbaneco.com Michael Apt Development Director 267-256-4520 mapt@gilbaneco.com The Next Level of Student Housing ® OPENING 2015 23Twenty Lincoln, Ames, IA (ISU) (Phase II Coming 2016) OPENING 2015 257 Thayer, Providence, RI (Brown University area) OPENING 2016 500 Beds, Cincinnati, OH (UC) Development | Joint Venture Partnerships | Public-Private Partnerships | Privatized Student Housing | On and Off Campus CA Ventures' Uncommon project at the University of Oregon.