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Dynamic Learning Community : Finance and MBA Students Tour Playa Vista

Playa Vista rendering

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June 2009

By Liz Warren-Pederson

Commercial real estate finance class travels to L.A.to tour the mixed-use development project built on a former Howard Hughes-owned airfield

In April, ten master’s of finance and Eller MBA students toured Playa Vista, a mixed-use development project built on a former Howard Hughes-owned airfield in Los Angeles.

The trip was part of a new commercial real estate development class taught by Edward Dyl, Sheafe/Neill/Estes Professor of Finance.

Playa Vista aims to be a sustainable development that provides critically-needed housing, commercial office space, and neighborhood shopping in the middle of Los Angeles, while adding parks, preserving the environment, and restoring hundreds of acres of wetlands. Its chairman and CEO, Steve Soboroff, is an alum of the Eller College.

“We’ve had a number of people who are active in the industry come in and talk with this class,” explains Dyl. “We’ve also gone on site visits, and we thought Playa Vista would be a great trip.” Soboroff, like many real estate developers, operates a highly entrepreneurial company; Dyl says that meeting with successful developers is inspiring to the students who come into the program “with that gleam in their eye.”

Sheena Lye (MMF ’09) was one of the students on the trip. Read about her experience, which included a trip around the block in Soboroff’s new Tesla electric sports car, in the Eller Blog.

Transportation costs for the students were donated by Eller alum Lisle Payne, chairman of Jackson Street Partners.

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