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excelmonkey34

As ambitious as it sounds, I know that career changes like these are more likely to occur when you are young, so I am trying to get on that early.

Being straight up honest... I had to read this a few times to make sure I didn't miss the context..... Like I thought you were first just asking how to leverage a development internship towards a job at a large investment manager, which would be a good question. Then I saw this statement and whole context about "career changes" and was like whoaa.... Not to throw any shade here... but a summer analyst spot at a big devco won't make you a career developer!!!!! It's an internship! You are not "career changing". And understanding development is very important to how many of the "mega funds" execute their opportunistic strategies (like what do you think they invest in.....). 

So, to properly answer the question you meant to ask...

Network and make connections, if this devco has partnerships/investments from the kind of equity shops you want to work for, make direct connections and then just boldly ask about applying in the next cycle and seek the internal recommendations. Otherwise, just network/apply as you would. The internship should help you understand the operations of a devco, maybe some deal structuring/analytics, and just have a better sense of the world of real estate. ALL of that is valuable on the equity investment side of the business. 

I seriously hope you don't think a summer analyst spot would lead to "pigeonholing" (one of the more stupid concepts discussed on WSO). This is nothing but pure advantage, use it as such! Congrats on the job!