The winners of Community Vision’s second annual Community Facilities Challenge were announced Wednesday, April 24. The Challenge, in partnership with California State University Fresno, gave students the opportunity to apply their educational skills and prepare a real estate feasibility analysis for a proposed community facility real estate project to benefit a low-income community in Fresno County.
This year students worked with Poverello House, a social service agency that serves the needs of the poor, hungry and homeless in Fresno. Poverello House is currently exploring the idea of refurbishing some of their existing buildings. Each team was given a proposed building, from which they developed a real estate plan.
The student teams presented their real estate analysis Wednesday, April 24th at CSU Fresno to a panel of seven judges, which included the Provost of the university, William Covino. The Dining Building team was this year’s winners of the Challenge. They proposed a financing plan, a construction schedule, and an interior design plan for a large dining facility that serves nearly 500,000 meals each year.
The winning team members are:
Monica Blancas, Construction Management, May 2013
Arianna Sandoval, Real Estate, May 2014
Ramon Torres, Construction Management, September 2013
Annie Trevino, Interior Design, May 2014
Luis Villanueva, Real Estate, September 2013
Laura Wainscott, Interior Design, May 2014
The Community Facilities Challenge student teams were comprised of undergraduate students from Fresno State’s Lyles College of Engineering, Craig School of Business and the Department of Art and Design.
We would also like to thank the judges of this year’s Challenge:
Darius Assemi, President, Granville Homes
William Covino, Provost, Fresno State University
Ken Crews, VP of Operations, Granville Homes
Cruz Ramos, City Manager, City of San Joaquin
Sarah Reyes, Program Manager, The California Endowment
Tim Rios, Senior VP, Wells Fargo Community Development
Douglas Weber, Senior VP, Comerica Bank
Congratulations to the winners of this Challenge and to all of the students for the time, effort and hard work each of them put into this challenge. In addition, we want to thank Comerica Bank, who sponsored this year’s Community Facilities Challenge.
