DU real estate and construction management students have won 15 competitions against CU Boulder
For 23 years, graduate students from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management have faced off against their peers from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business in an epic case competition.
The Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge is hosted by the Colorado chapter of commercial real estate development association NAIOP (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties). The competition, held annually in late April or early May, brings more than 700 commercial real estate and construction professionals together to watch Daniels and Leeds grad students compete for the coveted Wilkes Cup.
DU has won 15 of the 23 competitions, demonstrating Daniels students’ masterful preparation in analyzing complex real estate challenges and creating viable development solutions. A key to their success is proactive networking.
The months-long lead-up to the grueling final competition comes with access to NAIOP’s vast network of 10,000+ real estate and construction management professionals. Daniels teams take full advantage of leveraging connections with developers, attorneys, lenders, architects, investors, brokers, general contractors and public officials for insight, mentorship and critiques as they research and prepare their presentations.
Burns School alumna Katy Spritzer (MBA1993) is a real estate project manager for the WatR Program at the City and County of Denver’s Division of Real Estate, and she is DU’s longtime liaison for the Rocky Mountain Real Estate Competition.
Spritzer says Daniels students succeed “Because they’re not shy about getting out in the community and reaching out and talking to folks. They’re not afraid to call people and say, ‘Hey, can I take you to coffee? Can I pick your brain?’ They’re forging relationships throughout the entire process.”
Alexander Buck (MS 2025) was part of Daniels’ five-person winning team in 2025. He now works as an associate office broker at CBRE. Although he secured his current position—a strategic pivot from residential real estate to commercial brokerage—through other connections before the Real Estate Challenge, he says the experience undoubtedly increases participants’ access to career opportunities.
“It really separates you inside our industry locally,” Buck says. “The people that we met with… they know how you work. You have a leg up.”
Spritzer says several participants from the last few years landed jobs “as a direct result of the relationships they’ve formed through consulting with people about the Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge. They pick up the phone, and they call a NAIOP member, and anybody’s going to take that call.”
The challenge begins with both teams receiving a real-life commercial real estate development assignment from a sponsoring organization. Projects are typically early-stage or conceptual 15-20-acre sites with opportunities for either a blank slate ground-up build or redevelopment with mixed-use options that allow for creative flexibility in the development’s transformation and positioning.
The project sponsor benefits from student teams’ ideas for implementation, and students gain a real-life professional learning experience with a chance to contribute to meaningful neighborhood and regional improvements. Past project sites have included The River Mile, Victory Crossing, 61st & Peña station and more.
Teams spend about three months and 1,500 collective hours developing their solutions, including weekly collaborations with architectural and general contracting firms, and numerous rehearsals with college peers and leadership—including the Burns School Advisory Board—to uncover and overcome blind spots in their proposals.
The challenge culminates with hours of rigorous questioning from the judging panel of 10-12 industry professionals and final presentations at the event before a winner is announced.
Buck says his team’s strategy was to know the answer to every possible question a judge could ask. Their intense preparation included an all-nighter close to the competition when they broke for a two-hour power nap and resumed working at 4:30 a.m.
He says the team identified and leaned into each other’s strengths and compensated for weaknesses early on when dividing up responsibilities. His sales background as a real estate agent and personal trainer prepared him to confidently handle the cold calls to schedule meetings with as many development companies, banks and brokers as possible.
And, shortly after starting his new job at CBRE during competition week, Buck says he saw his colleagues pull together a high-stakes pitch on three days’ notice. “The crunch time that we experienced before the competition—I watched them do just that and I was like, ‘This really is the real world,’” he says.
DU’s team, “Bluejay Development,” won the 2025 Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge with their proposal to redevelop the 15-acre Thornton Shopping Center site with “A transformative, phased strategy designed to catalyze South Thornton through residential, retail, wellness, and community-driven uses.”
Buck says their proposal contained more realistic and financially viable solutions compared to the CU team’s more aspirational plans.
Spritzer observed that the DU team came across as more polished, mature and “spectacularly prepared.”
The professional skills developed through competition participation—financial analysis, public speaking, teamwork and strategic thinking—provide competitors with a clear advantage as they transition from graduate school into the next phase of their careers.
“Not only does it provide the perfect set-up and culmination of our real estate graduate students’ journey in our program by applying their learning in a real world and rigorous setting vetted by industry stalwarts, but it also gives them an opportunity to showcase themselves as a potential hire to Colorado’s ‘who’s who’ in real estate,” says Burns School director and professor Vivek Sah, PhD.
Though the commitment and intensity of the case competition isn’t for everyone, both Spritzer and Buck recommend the experience to graduate students who want to fully develop their career readiness.
“Nothing compares to what NAIOP gave us,” Buck says. “It was week after week of sharpening our skills and getting better and better and better. It was the best decision of all of school for me—and I really don’t say that lightly.”
Learn more at daniels.du.edu/burns-school/support/student-competitions.