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Commercial RE Certificate Student Profile: Celeste Lenon

Celeste Lenon has enjoyed a multifaceted career, having worked in architecture, technology and finance. Her collective experience led her to her current role as COO of MG2, an international architectural and design firm headquartered in Seattle. MG2 is well known for their robust portfolio in retail, food and beverage, and hospitality, and in Seattle, they are currently working on the Altitude Hotel and Residences, and Tower 12 in Seattle.  Celeste is responsible for improving company processes, and oversees accounting, marketing, human resources, IT, and program management. As COO, Celeste fully recognizes the importance of understanding the diverse industries her firm interacts with, which led her to enroll in this year’s UW Commercial Real Estate Certificate Program. “Being very data driven, I want to understand the full process so that we can be a better partner to developers by understanding what drives them.“ The CRE program’s multidisciplinary curriculum was of great appeal to Celeste, who hopes to bring what she learns in the program back to her team. “We can make better decisions if we are more informed and can get ahead of the curve.”

Outside of MG2 and the CRE program, Celeste enjoys taking cooking classes and tending her garden, and spending time with her three kids and two horses.

3rd Annual Runstad Center Leadership Dinner

The 2016 Runstad Center Leadership Dinner brought the Seattle real estate industry together in a memorable evening celebrating the many successes of the Runstad Center. We honored George Rolfe, beloved professor of many students and alumni, celebrating his retirement with a collection of selfies and George-isms. Peter Orser announced the establishment of an alumni fund, led by five Runstad alumni who recognize the importance of the Runstad Center program in creating future real estate leaders. The keynote speaker, Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft, gave an energizing talk that focused on our established history of innovation, pressing issues that Seattle is currently facing, and provided thoughtful suggestions about how the real estate community could implement long term solutions.

“The night was also a huge success for the Runstad Center, raising over $200,000 for Runstad Center operations, which will provide for our student programs and additional scholarships. Thank you to everyone who attended and supported the 2016 Runstad Center Leadership Dinner!!” -Peter Orser

Here are some photos from the evening, you can see even more here

Urban Land Institute Regional Cascadia Conference 2016

The Urban Land Institute Regional Cascadia Conference of 2016 was hosted in Vancouver, BC this year over the weekend of June 22nd. The Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies was represented by Ka-Chung Kwok (Class of 2017) and Alastair Townsend (Class of 2017) as attendees to this event. The following post is Ka-Chung’s impressions of the conference.  The Runstad Center Advisory Board’s generous donations helps to send students to one regional or national conference while earning their degree.

This conference was initiated by keynote speaker Mark Gilbreth – Founder of Liquidspace – a company that leverages mobile technology and social networking to capitalize on shifting needs of modern workplace tenancy. Based on a business model often referred to as “AirBnB of office space”, Liquidspace aims to activate structural vacancies caused by the traditional long-term multi-year leasing model. Mark’s keynote provided insight into the future of commercial office space brokerage as one that is becoming multi-faceted, real time data-driven and collaborative in nature between traditional brokerages with new technology driven participants. He predicts that by 2020 fifty percent of all office space transactions will be online.

A Panel discussion titled “The 21st Century City” then followed involving Real Estate experts and policy makers from Vancouver (Councillor Raymond Louie, Marc Josephson – Grosvenor Americas), Seattle (Garbriel Grant – Spectrum Development) and Portland (Lisa Abuaf – Portland Development Commission). This discussion compared and contrasted the recent growing pains found common to all three cities – rapidly escalating real estate prices, shortage of affordable working-class housing, and the complexities in providing effective Transit oriented developments. Each city took different approaches in crafting their policies with some common goals – Increasing affordability of housing, expanding transit options, and densification of the urban core. There are also some very unique factors – While Seattle is faced with a severe shortage of condominium supply for first-time home buyers due to the development risks associated by the Washington Condo Act; the reverse effect is happening in Vancouver where there is a shortage in supply of rental units.

The second half of the ULI conference focused on Site tours of notable upcoming development projects and recently completed projects in Vancouver. Highlights include Telus Garden and the Central post office adaptive reuse project in the downtown Core, Marine Gateway Transit oriented development along the Canada line, Brewery District in Westminster BC and the Downtown Eastside Urban Renewal project.

Why the Runstad Center matters

On October 13th The Runstad Center held its 3rd Annual Leadership Dinner where we introduced our newest video describing “Why the Runstad Center matters!”  It’s a great overview of the Center’s people and programs and definitely a must see if you are interested in an advanced degree in real estate.  Check out the full video here

An alternative to tent city: manufactured steel modules

Last week Runstad Center Affiliate Faculty member Al Levine was featured in the Seattle Times discussing his work with Compass Housing Alliance and OneBuild, designing manufactured steel modular units.  Read the full story here: http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-new-approach-build-steel-modular-housing-units-for-the-homeless/

Al Levineoriginal

 

What if the focus was making a place we all love?

What if our elected officials talked about ‘loving’ your city as the most important criteria?  What if we focused on making a place we all love?

Tomorrow, September 27th, the Runstad Center Affiliate Fellows present:

A CITY TO LOVE
VISIONS OF A PUBLIC REALM

Tuesday, September 27, 2016
6:00-8:00 pm

Impact HUB
220 2nd Ave South
Seattle, WA 98104

Refreshments will be served, program to begin at 6:30 p.m.

RSVP NOW

What if?

What if we stopped griping about the Seattle process, empowered our leaders, moved forward with a powerful vision focused on the community of the future, implementation, education for a shared language, evaluation and feedback loops and course adjustments – we grabbed our future and advance together?

A CITY TO LOVE
VISIONS OF A PUBLIC REALM

Tuesday, September 27, 2016
6:00-8:00 pm

Impact HUB
220 2nd Ave South
Seattle, WA 98104

Refreshments will be served, program to begin at 6:30 p.m.

RSVP NOW

Housing affordability crisis demands a solution

Last week, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties hosted their annual Housing Summit and our own Peter Orser was there to discuss how our recent condominium report can help provide answers.  Read a summary of the event on Seattle King County Realtors blog

mba-housing-summit-2016-peter-2
Peter Orser addresses the crowd at the 2016 MBA Housing Summit

A thought about tax increment financing…

What if we aggressively used the financing tools we have to do what is needed and stopped whining about tax increment financing and moved forward?

Find out more lessons learned from Auckland at their presentation on September 27th.

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A CITY TO LOVE
VISIONS OF A PUBLIC REALM

Tuesday, September 27, 2016
6:00-8:00 pm

Impact HUB
220 2nd Ave South
Seattle, WA 98104

Refreshments will be served, program to begin at 6:30 p.m.

RSVP NOW