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John Adorno: The Loyola Flats began when we had this strip of land over here that we’re actually sitting on now. Our Development partner McCafferey Interests, they really couldn’t make the land work.
So, basically the School decided that they would built up a 10-unit condo building on the land.
For a class, I had to write a business plan and I had been talking to my boss about the space. The stars kind of aligned and one thing led to another and
we brought the idea to an entrepreneurship MBA class and they made it their semester long case study.
They checked to see if it would work in general and they said, this will work, let’s run with it, we’re going to make this a student-run business.
Jena Eberly: I think the biggest challenge was when we were handed the project; we didn’t have a blueprint for what we were doing, for history for how you open a guest house and how students run it.
This was the first of its kind in the nation that we knew of. So, trying to figure out how we were going to market this both to the university population
and to the city of Chicago as a whole and maybe on a national scale as well was a challenge we had to figure out from the very beginning.
Christopher Roby: We’ve been in charge of completely branding the product from the start to what you see now. So the design of the logo, the website, to reaching out
to the director of communications, the media, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, NBC – they’ve all done pieces on The Flats.
It kind of incorporates everything, creating that look and feel down to the little pens in the units.
Patrick Chappell: This is a paid internship, it’s like a student worker position at the University. I oversee all operations of the building;
in a broad sense making sure the place is livable, just ensuring that all guest traffic gets in smoothly, the rooms are clean, maintenance is up to par.
Just anything that goes into being responsible for a living experience.
As a student, you can take what you learn in a classroom, and outside of a classroom,
and actually apply it to a hands-on experience. And just managing a business, its just so valuable.
John Adorno: Over your four years here you’ll probably be doing a lot of case studies, but this is a real life case study that you’re not going to learn out of a book.
This is hands-on, you’re not making copies for someone in an internship, you’re not filing papers, and you’re actually running a business.
And I don’t know many 18, 19, 20-year olds that can say they’re actually running a business.