Following the Brown Realty Investment and Construction Club's upgrade to a Category II group in November, which makes it eligible to apply for funding from the Undergraduate Finance Board, BRICC leaders hope to expand the group's membership and bring in more speakers.
BRICC began with "real estate conversations" held with Adjunct Lecturer in Engineering Josef Mittlemann '72 P'00 P'04 about "essentially every aspect of the field," said Evan Layne '06, one of the founders of the club who now works in real estate in New York. Layne and Peter Gladish '07 started the club because of a common interest in the field.
"Our initial goals were (to) somehow invest money and transform into an education vehicle," Layne said.
BRICC is the combination of two groups, the Brown Real Estate Construction Development Group and the Brown Real Estate Investment Group. Last year the groups were "brought together to combine resources," said Garrett Kirk '08, co-president of BRICC. The groups "realized (they had) too many similarities and (were) trying to draw in (the) same students."
The goal "is to teach kinds about real estate, get them interested and expose them to some of the different fields within real estate," Kirk said.
BRICC members have undertaken small research projects, including looking at large real estate companies that invest in stock on the New York Stock Exchange. A BRICC member pitched an idea to the Brown Investment Group based on a successful company he found, Kirk said.
The group has also hosted many speakers. They have included local individuals, alums, parents and former employers of members - "people interested in getting Brown students involved in real estate," Kirk said, adding that the group doesn't pay speakers. Colin Keogh '08, co-president of BRICC, said the group wanted to "try and focus on alumni that really want to come in and share what they've done with (the) student body."
In the past the group invited "all the major players" who were developing the GTECH headquarters downtown, Layne said. The lecture "really explained how a development project gets done," he said.
In the future BRICC would like to collaborate with other groups on lectures in order to "draw a larger crowd," Keogh said. One idea is to coordinate with the Brown Pre-Law Society for a lecture on real estate law.
The average meeting size of BRICC is around 15 to 20, and the e-mail list is over 100, Keogh said.
Keogh said BRICC is "really striving to raise our numbers a little bit," adding that the group is "not as well known as (the) Brown Investment Group." He did, however, note that attendance at group meetings has increased this year.
As "more students find out about it, more students are interested," Kirk said.
Keogh also said he wants to see BRICC members "more involved in community, networking and developing ties."
In the next 15 years Brown will be doing a lot of development due to the movement of Interstate 195, Kirk said. It is a "great opportunity for students to get involved in the development of Providence and (the) direction it's moving."
"We should have a say," Keogh said of the development.
In an e-mail to The Herald, Director of Strategic Growth Rebecca Barnes '71 wrote, "Involvement by faculty and students ... is anticipated to occur through the many traditional forums (presentations and meetings of governance and advisory groups)."
BRICC does not have any plans to push for more real estate classes. A former Group Independent Study Project has been turned into a regularly offered class, EN 194, Sec. 25: "Land Use and Built Environment: An entrepreneurial view," which is taught by Mittleman.
Group members do not concentrate in any particular area, Kirk said, but the most popular concentrations for BRICC members are Commerce, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship, engineering and economics.
BRICC members have also done community service in Olneyville through a local real estate firm that focuses on community work.
