ICSC & UNC Retail Real Estate Case Competition
ICSC & UNC Retail Real Estate Case Competition
The Leonard W. Wood Center for Real Estate Studies at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School was asked to partner with the ICSC Foundation in 2023 to co-host the Retail Real Estate Case Competition at ICSC Las Vegas. This invitation-only case competition is held annually during ICSC Las Vegas. Teams are made up of up to four undergraduate students from real estate programs across the U.S. and Canada. Students are given five days to tackle the case and prepare their presentation before traveling to Las Vegas to present to an esteemed panel of real estate judges and compete for $20,000 in prize money.
Congratulations to the top teams 0f 2024:
1st: University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School
2nd: Indiana University at Bloomington
3rd: California State University – Fullerton and University of Mississippi
The 2024 Case
The case for the 2024 ICSC and UNC Retail Real Estate Case Competition was based off of EDENS’ Shadowood Square, a 254,884 square foot Class A shopping center on 38 acres located in Boca Raton, FL. In the case, students were told that while the center is stabilized, it has lost several major tenants. The changing population of the surrounding area presents an opportunity to reshape the center, and students were asked to consider multiple options before presenting their recommendation and financial analysis for the improvement of Shadowood Square. Competitors were asked to consider a range of options, including a facelift of the center, retail repositioning to more of a lifestyle center and repositioning the center to mixed use with the addition of a residential component.
Participating Schools 
- Baruch College
- California State University – Fullerton
- California State University – Northridge
- Colorado State University
- Indiana University Bloomington
- Indiana University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
- Marquette University
- Rutgers Business School
- Tulane University
- University of Alabama
- University of Colorado
- University of Mississippi
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- University of Texas at Austin
- Villanova University
Judges
- Cathy Clark – Bedrock Detroit
- Christopher Colon – WPG
- Dave Henry – Peaceable Street Capital
- Kenneth Lamy – The Lamy Group
- Sandeep Mathrani – Sycamore Executive Advisors
- Jimmy Mauren – Stirling Properties
- Scott McPherson – Merlone Geier Properties
- Ran Meng – Phillips Edison
- Jared Nutt – Citi
- Alex Nyhan – First Washington
- Nick Pearce – Target Corporation
- Gary Rappaport – Rappaport
- Val Richardson – ICSC
- Eve Sembler – Sembler
- Michael Shanahan – Burlington Stores