The Rutgers Center for Real Estate will hold a 10-year anniversary party tonight — one with top-notch food and beverage worthy of the metrics of its success:
Top-notch classes taught by industry leaders — often featuring speakers from the industry;
Insightful conferences and white papers — led and written by the best the industry has to offer;
Nearly $2.3 million in scholarship money to 373 students, many of which come from demographics the commercial real estate sector is desperately short on;
And more than 325 alumni, all of whom have joined the profession with knowledge that ensures the industry’s next generation is better prepared than the previous one.
By all accounts, the center has been a smashing success.
But why stop there?
Ron Ladell, a founding member and now the chair of center’s executive committee, is a builder. Someone always looking for the next project.
These are qualities that have made him a huge success as a senior vice president and New Jersey lead at AvalonBay Communities — and ones that have helped him develop a blueprint for the next 10 years at the Center.
Ladell wants to take the Center to the next level — and he needs more funding to do it.
His goal is to create an endowment, which would enable the center to be able to hire more full-time professors, hold more case competitions and do more things that will produce even better students.
“Most of the challenges we have are driven by money,” he said. “We don’t really get much. We get little support from Rutgers. We get great support from our donors, but they are limited.”
The school was launched with great assistance from Paul Profeta, who personally endowed the chair of the school with a $1.5 million commitment — a gift that was matched by an anonymous donor.
Ladell is hoping to get another such commitment for the next decade. Or smaller commitments from multiple donors to equal that amount.
“We would love to get an endowment for a professor and an executive director,” he said. “We would love to get an endowment for a case competition or an individual class or certificate.
“At Rutgers, they have the Road to Wall Street and the Road to Silicon Valley. They are separate initiatives that involve certain professors, provide additional classes to 30, 40, 50 people and engagement with the industry.
“We’re trying to get a ‘Road to Real Estate’ in certain disciplines.”
The ask is never easy.
Ladell is hoping that the industry professionals that have been a part of the Center in some way — “anyone who has participated has loved it,” he said — will find a way to take their commitment and enthusiasm to the next level.
It would allow the center to be bigger and better, matching the efforts of other top real estate centers across the country.
“Without a bigger endowment, we’ll still do OK,” he said. “But when you compare ourselves to UNC or to Florida State University — where they typically have 20-25 corporate sponsors at a very high level — you can see the difference.”
