New Harvard Executive Education Programs for Real Estate Developers Urban Planners and Architects Are Scheduled Throughout Summer

Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) June 20, 2007 -- This summer, the economics of real estate markets, due diligence for commercial real estate acquisitions, urban housing, and master planning are just a few of the topics to be covered in a new series of executive education programs from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Designed specifically for real estate developers, urban planners, architects, and building industry professionals, these programs will enable participants to gain new skills while exploring timely issues and trends affecting their industries.

The programs offered include:

- Master Planning: Creating Communities, July 9-10, Instructors: David Hirzel, Frederick Merrill, and Dennis Pieprz, Sasaki Associates Inc., Watertown, MA

- Retail Planning Principles for American Cities and New Urban Commercial Centers, July 9-10, Instructors: Robert Gibbs, Gibbs Planning Group, Inc., Birmingham, MI and Terry Shook, Shook Kelly Architects, Charlotte, NC

- Owning the Future: Urban Housing and Mixed-Use Development, July 26-27, Instructor: Johannes Van Tilburg, Van Tilburg, Banvard & Soderbergh, Santa Monica, CA

- Strategic Facilities Planning: Aligning Real Estate and Facility Assets with Business Goals, July 31-August 1, Instructor: Robert A. Klein, Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, New York, NY

- New Communities: Concepts of Master Planning, August 2-3, Instructors: Dwight DeMay and A. James Tinson, Hart Howerton, Boston and New York

- Comprehensive Due Diligence for Today's Commercial Real Estate Acquisitions, August 6-7, Instructor: Kurt R. Padavano, Advance Realty Group, Bedminster, NJ

- The Financial and Economic Markets of Real Estate, August 8-9, Instructor: Raymond G. Torto, CBRE/Torto Wheaton Research, Boston, MA

Master Planning: Creating Communities:
This team-taught program focuses on the general principles of master planning with a particular emphasis on the revitalization of urban areas, the development of new communities. Discussions emphasize the factors that influence planning solutions, including market and socioeconomic factors, regulatory and zoning processes, and political realities, as well as the personal goals and aspirations of key participants in the development process.

Retail Planning Principles for American Cities and New Urban Commercial Centers:
Hundreds of new urban and lifestyle centers are being opened across all market segments. However, many of these new centers will be at risk of failing due to critical planning and programming errors. This two-day program focuses on the actual nuts and bolts of market research, site selection, planning, parking, tenant mix, store design, merchandising, and streetscape needed to develop successful urban and suburban town centers.

Owning the Future -- Urban Housing and Mixed-Use Development:
This program introduces and explores the contemporary architectural, ecological, and civic issues contained within and surrounding the trend toward combining, in new and creative ways, housing and commercial development to create mixed-use urban and suburban neighborhoods. It also explores the primary issues of housing/commercial mixed-use developments as they relate to senior and special needs housing, urban renewal, and rapid transit and why and how urban decay is affecting older suburban neighborhoods.

Strategic Facilities Planning: Aligning Real Estate and Facility Assets with Business Goals:
As companies and institutions increasingly face the challenge of aligning their real estate and facility assets with their business goals, Strategic Facilities Planning, or SFP, has grown as an area of expertise and as a discipline that provides sophisticated tools to support complex decisions. A strategic facilities plan provides a means of visualizing the future that allows an organization to test a future condition that does not yet exist. This program offers insight into SFP and examines how strategic facility planning can be used to assess long-term facility and real estate requirements and to communicate strategic opportunities to senior management.

New Communities -- Concepts for Master Planning
In recent years, new master planning concepts, combined with evolving real estate patterns and priorities, have resulted in compelling new communities such as The Kentlands, Palmetto Bluff, Stapleton, and Celebration. As the demand and popularity of planned communities increases, the process of planning and developing these communities has become increasingly complex. That process is the focus of this two-day program, which encourages site planners, developers, architects, and landowners to explore the fundamental elements of community and neighborhood design, proven strategies for successful "place making," regulatory and development factors that shape implementation, and the application of these wide-ranging considerations to actual site conditions.

Comprehensive Due Diligence for Today's Commercial Real Estate Acquisitions:
A thorough due diligence process is vital to any commercial real estate transaction, as it allows for confirmation of an asset's value and ensures that both sellers' and buyers' goals can be met within the terms of the constructed agreement. This two-day program will outline typical timeframes for due diligence, both within the purchase cycle and within the life cycle of the asset, and will discuss strategies for building a due diligence team to assure thorough and timely investigation of the asset. Financial, physical, and development due diligence issues and strategies will also be covered enabling participants to gain a comprehensive understanding of the key elements of the process.

The Financial and Economic Markets of Real Estate:
Real estate professionals, whether in design, public policy, or management, need a clear understanding of the driving forces, the useful signals, and the expected functioning of the real estate markets for space and for capital. This program introduces a framework for understanding these markets and how they affect the building professionals and the fields of expertise in which they work. One part of the program will focus on the economics of residential and commercial markets and the long-term structural trends of today. It will analyze why real estate has historically been a boom-or-bust industry and why this will not be as true in the future. The financial part of the program will cover the basic financial concepts and tools used to evaluate real estate as an investment within the public and private debt and equity real estate markets.

Harvard GSD's executive education programs are registered with the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Continuing Education System and earn AIA/CES units. Complete program and registration information can be found at www.gsd.harvard.edu/execed

About the Office of Executive Education at Harvard University Graduate School of Design:
The Office of Executive Education at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the foremost provider of Executive Education programs for architects, planners, and real estate and building industry professionals. Executive Education offers an extensive menu of programs that covers topics in design and real estate as well as customized programs that can be tailored to an organization's or firm's specific learning needs. Drawing upon the unparalleled resources of Harvard University, Executive Education programs are led by renowned faculty from the GSD, the Business School, the Law School, and the Kennedy School of Government, as well as eminent practitioners and scholars from across the country and around the world. For more information, visit www.gsd.harvard.edu/execed

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