The Real Estate Design, Construction, and Development (REDCD) minor aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between the LSU School of Architecture, Burt S. Turner Department of Construction Management, and the Department of Finance. It offers undergraduate students a coordinated concentration in allied studies, integrating design, urban policy, construction processes, and real estate economics to shape the built environment.
This new minor will appeal to students in related disciplines, as well as those from other majors who have a strong professional interest or career goals in real estate development, architecture, urban planning, construction management, or finance. Students will learn about sustainable real estate/land development principles, commercial real estate finance, urban planning and design, construction methodology and management processes, and public-private sector relationships.
The REDCD minor requires 18 credit hours, including three core courses from different departments, two electives, and an interdisciplinary project. The project may be linked to competitions within and across the departments like National Association of Home Builders Competition or Urban Land Institutes Urban Plan, where students from various fields collaborate to reduce a holistic interdisciplinary proposal addressing a real estate challenge.
Required Courses
Core Courses
Register for the three core courses, one from each partner programs:
ARCH 4353 Principles and Practices of Land Development (3)
Environmental, physical and financial aspects of land development.
CM 4223 – Company Strategic Planning (3)
Strategic planning within the construction industry; emphasis on strategically formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross functional decisions that enable construction businesses and construction managers to achieve organizational goals.
FIN 3353 Real Estate Finance (3)
Prerequisite: FIN 3351 or 3715 or 3716 or equivalent. Real estate financing decisions for residential and income-producing properties; risk-return analysis for varying conditions of financial leverage; decision making related to pricing, alternative financing methods, refinancing, mortgage portfolio management; financing methods; government involvement in mortgage market and housing finance.
Approved Electives
Select two electives. At least one of these electives must be outside student major department.
ARCH 4032 Advanced Architectural Technology (3)
Prereq.: ARCH 3008. Seminar relating to topics of architectural technologies including, but not limited to building structures, environmental concerns, electronic transfer of information.
ARCH 4062 Urban Design and Planning (3)
Fundamentals of urban morphology in relation to historical, social, political and economic systems.
FIN 3351 Principles of Real Estate (3)
Prereq.: BLAW 3201 or FIN 3715 or FIN 3716. Purchasing, owning and operating real estate relative to interest in realty, liens, contracts, deeds, titles, leases, brokerage, management.
FIN 3352 Real Estate Valuation and Investment (3)
Prereq.: FIN 3351 or FIN 3715 or FIN 3716 or equivalent. Principles of valuation applied to single-family and income-producing real property; techniques for making investment decisions in alternative types of real property; cash flow analysis considering income tax effects, financial leverage, risk-return trade-offs and alternative methods of disposition.
CM 3235 Residential Land Development (3)
Prereq.: CM 1112 or CM 2100; or permission of department. Introduction to the principles and procedures of residential development. Land development, market research, and residential company start-up practices are explored
CM 4222 Essentials of lndustry Leadership (3)
Essentials of leadership within the construction industry; emphasis on the complexities of practicing leadership as managers, estimators, schedulers, project managers, and supervisors.
CM 3111 Construction Estimating (3)
Credit will not be given for this course and CM 3110.
Prereq.: CM 2113, CM 2116 and MATH 1431 or MATH 1550. 2 hrs. lecture; 2 hrs. lab. Fundamentals of estimating including document review, quantity survey, material, equipment and labor pricing and bid package preparation for construction projects.
Interdisciplinary Project
Conduct a project with one of these courses:
ARCH 3000 Independent Study
FIN 4354 Real Estate Development
CM 4206 Special Topics in Construction Management
Prerequisites
CM 1112 Construction Materials and Methods I (3) or
ARCH 2224 Architectural Systems (3)