M. J. Horne Chair James Shilling Forecasts Robust Year for Commercial Real Estate

The Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M., DePaul University president, publicly launched a $16 million fundraising campaign for the Real Estate Center at DePaul with the announcement of a $3 million anonymous gift for the center during a luncheon at the Union League Club of Chicago to welcome DePaul’s new real estate studies chair.

James Shilling, DePaul’s new Michael J. Horne Chair in Real Estate Studies, delivered the event’s keynote address, forecasting a healthy 2007 for commercial real estate in Chicago and nationally. More than 200 real estate professionals turned out to hear the speech by Shilling, who is one of nation’s foremost experts in real estate economics, finance and investment.

Holtschneider acknowledged the center’s newest gift and as well as its founding sponsors for their role in helping the Real Estate Center become a hub for the most comprehensive portfolio of real estate courses available in the Midwest. “DePaul is grateful to the generous donors who make it possible for the university to offer this kind of high-quality program to our students,” he said at the Jan. 25 event.

With the $3 million gift, the Real Estate Center has already approached the two-thirds mark toward its fundraising goal by attracting $10.5 million in donations during the quiet phase of the campaign, Holtschneider noted. Douglas Crocker II, retired CEO of Equity Residential Properties Trust, and his wife, Cynthia, donated $2 million to fund the directorship of the Real Estate Center in August of 2005, and DePaul alumnus George L. Ruff, founder and senior principal of New York-based Trinity Hotel Investors LLC, gave $1.5 million for a real estate professorship in September of 2006. Another $4 million came to the center in October of 2006 through an endowment underwritten by the Michael J. Horne Education & Healthcare Assistance Foundation.

Early fundraising success allowed DePaul to hire Shilling, who joined the university’s finance faculty in January. Shilling leads DePaul’s real estate research program, teaches in the university’s highly ranked MBA program and will foster educational and research links to Chicago’s real estate community. He came to DePaul from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Shilling’s arrival not only offers DePaul students an opportunity to study with a nationally renowned scholar who will integrate the academic with the practical, it also benefits the city’s business and civic community, Holtschneider said. The research program Shilling manages will provide “the region with extraordinary expertise and data to support the work of the real estate development community as well as those charged with city and urban planning,” he said. “It is due to our commitment to forging this powerful connection that the Real Estate Center at DePaul has become a model for other real estate centers around the country.”

DePaul plans to expand funding for real estate research and increase student scholarships through the campaign, said Finance Professor Susanne Cannon, the Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Director of the Real Estate Center. “With support from the real estate community, I believe our center can become the nation’s preeminent institution for producing talented industry professionals, relevant research and outreach programs that engage the business and civic community in creating healthy urban growth,” she said.

Fundraising committee campaign chair Richard A. Hanson, principal of Mesa Development L.L.C., who is a DePaul trustee and founding sponsor of the center, said the enhanced funding and faculty are positive signs that DePaul “is achieving the dream that began four years ago to create a real estate center that fulfills the role of serving students, the university and the industry.”