A team of Florida International University students recently returned from Washington, D.C., with more than a strong finish at a prestigious real estate competition. They came back with a deeper understanding of development, teamwork and what it takes to perform under pressure.
Representing FIU’s Master of Science in International Real Estate (MSIRE) program, Cecilia Milessi, Enrique Tcherassi, Ricardo Bossio and Karenna Moret Montenegro advanced to the semifinals of the MIT CASE Competition — the first FIU team to make it that far in a decade. For Moret Montenegro, the news was both exciting and unexpected.
“It was an awesome feeling,” she said. “It really is a hard competition. You have to build a redevelopment, and you have to do all only in one week, so it’s a lot of work for just a little time.”
The students were tasked with creating a redevelopment proposal for the J. Edgar Hoover FBI headquarters building in Washington, D.C. Their team had to study zoning, analyze market conditions, evaluate possible uses, build a financial model and prepare a final presentation for judges.
Milessi said the property itself made the challenge especially difficult.
“The biggest risk is the property is super big. It’s humongous,” she said. Because it was a federal building in a unique location, she said, there were few comparable projects to help guide the team’s thinking. At the same time, she saw enormous potential. “It’s a prime location,” Milessi said. “We could generate a mini city within our property.”
The work required both creative thinking and realism. Bossio said the team had to divide responsibilities carefully while balancing the competition with jobs and classes.
“It was honestly very challenging because of the time constraints,” he said. “We were the only team that also do full-time work.” Still, he said, each member leaned into their strengths, particularly on the financial side, and the group kept refining the proposal as they went.
When it came time to present, Tcherassi said the team rose to the moment.
“The best time we did it was during the presentation itself,” he said. “Everybody locked in and delivered under pressure.” He said the experience felt closer to a professional pitch than a classroom exercise, especially because the judges offered practical feedback rooted in real-world development.
The semifinals also carried added significance because of the caliber of schools in the field. Tcherassi said competing alongside programs such as Cornell and Columbia gave the team confidence that FIU belonged on that stage.
“That also gave us confidence that we were in the right path and doing it right,” he said.
For the students, one of the biggest takeaways was that success in real estate is not just about getting the numbers right. It is also about telling a compelling story.
“I learned a lot,” Milessi said. “How to communicate all the information that you learned — that’s not something that you can do through an Excel file.”
The team also credited FIU for supporting the trip and expressed hope that more students will have the same opportunity in the future. Bossio called it “the more real life experience that we have discussed in class,” while Moret Montenegro said the competition is “a huge opportunity” for students in the program. They also thanked the MIT Center for Real Estate for hosting what Milessi described as a “top notch” competition experience, and BXP for welcoming the students into its Washington, D.C., office while they were in the city.