Real Estate Development, Design, and Construction

This course is a module. It lasts the second half of the semester only.
Jointly Listed at Harvard Business School as HBS 1465

This course has an irregular schedule: Most Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays on HBS calendar, 1:30 – 2:50 pm, starting Wednesday March 13th and ending Friday, April 26th. Please refer to the Y schedule (will be the right column, Term 4): https://inside.hbs.edu/Departments/mba/academics/Documents/ec12-13.pdf
Harvard Business School Aldrich Hall 208

General Notes:

GSD students should register for this course as GSD 7409.The course GSD 7309, \”Sustainable Cities: Urbanization, Infrastructure, and Finance\” runs in the same time block in the first half of the semester. Together the two courses constitute a full 4 credits. Enrollment limited to 30 GSD students. This course is taught by the HBS Case Study method. Grading is by a combination of class participation and a team project. Students registered into GSD 7309M4 receive a GSD format grade, not an HBS grade. This is primarily a finance course, with significant aspects of architecture and urban design woven in.

Career Focus:
This course focuses on students who expect to be leaders in the global real estate industry and its related specialties. In the near term, these students will lead in the built environment as project managers in real estate development, real estate investing, private equity in real estate, architecture, urban planning, construction, or other fields emphasizing project management.

Educational Objectives:
The educational objectives of this course are to introduce students to the basic tools and concepts needed to be thoughtful users of design, and effective project managers and leaders in the built environment. The analytical tools address a set of management skills that grow from the project level to the firm level to regional and industry levels.

Jointly-listed between Harvard Business School and Harvard Design School, this course is intended to serve an audience comprised of students from both schools, using faculty and concepts drawn from both schools and combining issues in finance, architecture, project materials and methods, and planning.

Course Content and Organization:
The course is organized into four modules which follow the chronology of development, design, and construction.
1. Introduction to Real Estate Development: Creating in the Built Environment
2. From Concept to Reality: Vision, Design, and Site Assembly
3. Balancing Revenue, Cost, and Design: Proformas and Blueprints
4. Construction and Project Management Toolkit: Bidding, Contracts, Cost Reports, Scheduling
Classes and assignments include case study discussions, simulation exercises, group and individual short projects, polls, and a multi-phase final project delivered in groups and drawing on all the tools of the course.
This course is distinct from the \”Real Property\” and \”Real Estate in Emerging Markets\” courses at HBS since this curriculum focuses primarily on the conception, creation, and delivery of projects, with less emphasis on capital markets and the management of cash flowing real assets. It is a good project specific complement to \”Sustainable Cities: Urbanization, Infrastructure and Finance\” at HBS. This course is distinct from other professional practice courses at the Harvard Design School due to its extensive combination of design, project delivery, and real estate economics, as well as its use of the HBS Case Study pedagogy.