UCO London/Belfast/Dublin study tour

By: J. David Chapman/May 18, 2017

I am writing this from the Grand Rotunda in the British Museum. We are wrapping up our research extension and awaiting another 25 students eager to start the 2017 UCO London/Belfast/Dublin Study Tour.

The British Museum is arguably the most noteworthy museum worldwide. It is an incomparably rich treasure-chest of items collected by the British when they ruled the world. The Rosetta Stone, Egyptian antiquities and mummies, the Elgin Marbles, the Black Obelisk, the 2,000-year-old Lindow Bog Man, and the Sutton Hoo treasure, all within an incredible building housing these treasures.

We start our real estate tour of London with my colleague, friend, and professor of real estate at the University of Reading, Eamonn D’Arcy, who will be escorting us through the London City Models in Guildhall and New London Architecture.

After gaining a perspective by viewing these high-tech models of venues and buildings, we visit some of the largest, most expensive developments in the world. Starting at the impressive King’s Cross mixed-use development incorporating one of the busiest multimodal transportation schemes in the world, leveraging high-speed international trains, underground local trains, canals, buses, bicycles, and foot traffic to create a world-class venue housing some of the world’s largest corporations, such as Google. The goal of this development was to incorporate their historic, industrial roots, such as the coal-storage facilities and gas-holders with new, extremely high density modern multifamily, office, and retail. By all accounts, they have been successful.

Next, we visit the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park London Legacy Development, site of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Their vision was to use the Olympic infrastructure to change the lives of people in east London and drive growth and investment in the area by developing an inspiring and innovative place where people want to live, work, and visit. It is one of the most innovative developments in the world.

In the central London business district, we will tour skyscrapers with nicknames such as Heron Tower, The Cheese Grater, Walkie-Talkie Building, the Gherkin, and the Shard, which is the tallest building in Western Europe at 310 meters. Our students are always interested to compare it to our Devon tower, at 257 meters, and be proud to know it would hold a respectable place in London’s skyline.

J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).