ICF Real Estate Colloquium - Housing the Knowledge Economy: Universities, Real Estate, and the Future of Campus-Adjacent Housing

Join us on April 14th for a fireside chat with Steven D. Elliott ’93 MBA (Senior Managing Director of Real Estate Development, Stanford University) and Sara Shank (CEO and Founder, Seventh Street Capital). Moderated and hosted by Professor Cameron LaPoint (Assistant Professor of Finance, Yale School of Management). Lunch will be provided.

University-centered property markets sit at the crossroads of higher education, urban development, and capital investment. They include not only residence halls, but also apartments, mixed-use projects, scattered-site multi-family portfolios, and other nearby housing that serves students, faculty, staff, and the broader campus ecosystem. These assets help shape everything from neighborhood growth and affordability to university expansion and research activity. But they are also being tested by larger forces: rising development costs, higher interest rates, evolving patterns of student demand, and longer-term demographic headwinds, including population aging and a projected slowdown in the number of traditional college-age students in many parts of the United States. Together, these pressures are raising important questions about how housing around major universities will be financed, developed, and managed in the years ahead.

This fireside chat will bring together perspectives from university real estate development, investment management, and academia to explore that changing landscape. Rather than focusing narrowly on dormitories, the discussion will examine the wider housing ecosystem around major campuses -- how universities think about real estate as both mission and asset, how private capital is approaching this real estate segment, and where the most important opportunities and challenges may emerge next.

The conversation and Q&A will be moderated by Prof. Cameron LaPoint.

Speaker Bios:

Steven D. Elliott
Steve Elliott joined Stanford University’s Real Estate Office in August 2005 as Managing Director of Development Projects and has been responsible for developments including the Rosewood Hotel & Office Development in Menlo Park, as well as Stanford University’s Redwood City campus, which marks the first expansion of the university outside of Palo Alto and Santa Clara Counties. Prior to joining Stanford, Steve was Senior Vice President of Investments and Portfolio Management at GIC Real Estate, Inc., the real estate investment arm for the government of Singapore. Steve has also worked with William Wilson & Associates and Aetna Real Estate Investments. Steve received his B.A. in Economics and Business from UCLA and his MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Sara Shank
Sara brings more than 25 years of institutional real estate experience to Seventh Street Capital, spanning strategy, acquisitions, portfolio management, and innovation at global investment platforms. She previously served as Managing Director and Global Head of Innovation at PGIM Real Estate and held senior investment and portfolio leadership roles at Beacon Capital Partners. Sara combines deep real estate expertise with significant proptech experience to shape the firm’s proximity-driven strategy and its evolving technology platform. Sara received her B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia and her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

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