Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Day 14. June 19, 2008


Day 14. June 19, 2008

Day 14 was one of our busiest days yet. We began with a 7:00 breakfast with flexible arrival times in order to provide students with a little extra time to exercise. Our day then promptly started at 8:00 to run through their Bridgestone presentations one last time before the big event.
As 9:00 came, the nervous tension dissipated and the students headed to the Vanderbilt Law School Conference room to greet the team from Bridgestone. 8 representatives of the Bridgestone marketing and environmental teams were on hand to evaluate the work of our Accelerator teams. Each team had 10 minutes to make their “pitch” to Bridgestone. After much deliberation and a close race between Team 4 and Team 5 – Bridgestone declared Team 5 the winner. James Fuqua Ami Gosalia, Aubrey Hammond, and Michael Shatto presented Team 5’s highly polished marketing campaign with ease, immensely impressing the Bridgestone team. Other members of the team include: Andrew Brady, David Dar, Jessica Decker, Sarah Leggett, Sarah Russell and Jeffrey Taylor. The team coach is Ryan Igleheart.

The teams ended the session by voting for their MVPs: Team 1: Marc Levit, Team 2: Brittany Gowers, Team 3: Zach Barrett, Team 4: Tyler Weaks, Team 5: Sarah Leggett, Team 6: Tori Richard & Elliot Steinbaum, Team 7: Chris Harris, and Team 8: Ivan Au. Congratulations to each of these individuals for being recognized by their teams.

With the presentations coming to an end around 11:30, everyone grabbed a quick box lunch before heading to the Gresham Smith & Partners launch. The students were delighted for another off-campus launch, this element adds to the excitement of the program. As our buses arrived in downtown Nashville, we were guided to the Civic Design Center to meet the Gresham team: James Bearden (President), Patrick Gilbert (Senior Associate Architect leading our project) and John Houghton (Senior Planner leading our project). They were joined by David Koellein, Development Associate from Giarratana Development.

Our Mission: Gresham, Smith and Partners (GS&P) has been retained to prepare a master redevelopment plan for a property located at the site of the old Thermal Plant. The 12-acre site was originally slated to be the new baseball stadium site, but that plan was unable to get funding. Given it’s proximity to the new pedestrian bridge and the downtown area, the site has significant potential and has prompted area developers to re-evaluate the site.

Accelerator teams are to assist GS&P with the decision, evaluate the market characteristics of the property and recommend a course of action for highest and best use of the property. Teams will have 20 working hours to complete the task.

At the end of the briefing, everyone walked to the pedestrian bridge, which overviews the plot of land the students have been asked to develop.

Then arriving back at Owen, our Accelerator teams were directed back to the law school for an briefing by Tony Giarrantana, one of Nashville’s leading developers. Tony shared his view on real estate in today’s market and potential uses of the 12-acre site.

For dinner, our teams devoured a delicious Jerusalem chicken dish and then began dress rehearsals for the Caterpillar presentations that will be tomorrow morning. Each team practiced their pitch in front of a panel of faculty (Kimberly Pace, Cherrie Clark, John English, Carol Barry and David Furse) for last minute critique and review.

As the night came to an end, the students, coaches, and staff headed to their respective rooms for some much-needed rest. We closed the day around 10:00 PM – tomorrow is another big day…

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