After another great summer of the Real Estate Exchange (REEX) JumpStart Program @ MIT, the home team wins first place! Team MARS Enterprises, named after its members, Madison, Ashley, Rebeca, and Sir Rahn – won the judges over in the final round of presentations on October 21.
This year the REEX @ MIT cohort was tasked with developing a near 400,000sqft commercial-industrial site located at 20-22 Drydock Ave in the Seaport District, South Boston. REEX as a learning program for high school students relies heavily upon the corporate community for providing development sites and tours related to the case study learning model for program participants. Kelly Cameron EdD., the lead organizer of the MIT program gives, “special thanks to Steve Faber and the Related Beal team [in Boston] for the on-campus presentation and hospitality in providing staff assistance with a site tour of the Drydock Ave location the firm is preparing to develop.” Dr. Cameron is the founding curriculum director for the REEX @ MIT program and career development officer at CRE – he has been an integral part of the program since its launch in 2019.
…Each team showcased unbelievable skills as each team member demonstrated their intense learning about commercial real estate development.”
Kelly Cameron
In addition to MIT, the 2023 REEX Program was hosted by four other universities, Cornell, NYU, Harvard and Howard. As the two-week learning program wrapped up in late-July, one of two semi-final rounds included teams competing from MIT, Harvard and Howard universities. From the three, the MIT team – MARS Enterprises – was selected to compete in the final round. In the other semi-final round, teams representing Cornell and NYU competed, with the NYU team and their mixed-use commercial and residential site in NYC being selected as the other finalist. The final round between MIT and NYU was held virtually on Saturday, October 21, 2023 and featured a panel of five industry professionals serving as jurors. Dr. Cameron notes that throughout the semi-finals and finals, both high school teams, “produced great presentations all around, displayed mastery of terms used in the industry, and their presentations were simply amazing, and each team showcased unbelievable skills as each team member demonstrated their intense learning about commercial real estate development.” In the end, the jurors selected MARS Enterprises from MIT as the top team, but congratulations is due to each team.
