The CREDA SoCal UCLA vs. USC Real Estate Challenge will return for its 29th year on November 19, with this year’s competition to be held on the UCLA campus. The annual graduate-level event brings together a five-member team from UCLA’s Ziman Center for Real Estate at the Anderson School of Business and a five-member team from USC’s Lusk Center at the Marshall School of Business and the Price School of Public Policy. The schools compete to propose the highest and best use for a distinct site in Southern California. Over nearly three decades, the two programs have built a closely matched record, entering the 2026 event tied with 14 wins each.
For the 2026 challenge, participants will focus on an approximately 30-acre property in the City of Torrance that currently serves as the community’s Civic Center. The site houses multiple civic functions, including City Hall, a municipal pool, a cultural arts center, a library and the police department. The city is seeking ways to reimagine the property by consolidating these public uses and opening up the remaining land for new development, positioning the competition as a potential source of ideas for future planning efforts.
The selected Civic Center site represents a sizable infill opportunity in an established Southern California community, with a range of existing public uses and facilities already in place. Students will be tasked with examining how to better organize those uses on the property while exploring alternative concepts for underutilized portions of the site. The exercise is designed to require participants to balance civic needs with potential new development that could support the community and align with municipal objectives.
Competition organizers emphasize that direct engagement with industry professionals is a core component of the event. Erin Crum, executive vice president of asset management at Alere Property and chair of the LA Real Estate Challenge, described the Torrance Civic Center as a strong example of an infill site that can reward careful analysis and creative problem-solving. According to Crum, the format allows students to consult experts, test different strategies and collaborate on solutions to a real-world land-use question while also generating perspectives that may help inform the city’s thinking.
By assigning teams to work on an active civic campus with multiple stakeholders and existing improvements, the 2026 challenge is structured to expose students to the complexities that accompany public-sector real estate decisions. The exercise requires them to consider how public services, community amenities and potential private development can coexist on a single, high-profile site. While the competition will ultimately produce a winning proposal between UCLA and USC, it is also intended to familiarize emerging real estate professionals with the practical and policy constraints that often shape outcomes in urban redevelopment settings.
