On September 11, 2014, the Center for Real Estate at Marquette University hosted the third annual Real Estate Strategies Conference. The half day conference focused on the theme, “Managing the Horizon.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Mark Eppli, Interim James H. Keyes Dean and Bell Chair in Real Estate, Marquette University, gave his economic forecast presentation, focusing on the changing economic landscape and its impact on commercial real estate. Slides from the presentation

Mr. Steve Yastrow, author, Ditch the Pitch: The Art of Improvised Persuasion.  Steve Yastrow shared ideas from his new book, Ditch the Pitch, encouraging attendees to “tear up their elevator speech” and, instead, learn how to improvise effective persuasive conversations.

Northwestern Mutual led a case study panel on its planned 32-story lakefront office tower in downtown Milwaukee. This tower will contain over 1.1 million square feet, which will be the largest single building in the State of Wisconsin. At this panel, Northwestern Mutual provided a background on why the company chose to continue to invest in downtown Milwaukee and what needed to be done to get this building approved and started. 

Case study: Kenosha development - what it takes to attract businesses to Wisconsin: Todd Battle, President, Kenosha Area Business Alliance, and Jeffrey Zygler, vice president, KTR Caital Partners, led a discussion on the number of new developments that are taking place in Kenosha County, including the Amazon and Uline facilities.

A “how to get your project funded” panel, which featured a discussion on the challenges and strategies that top industry professionals are seeing in today’s capital markets.