Last Thursday, January 9, REjournals hosted their annual Chicago Commercial Real Estate Forecast conference at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Considered by many in the industry to be the kickoff event of the year, the conference—now in its 18th year, attracted more than 900 CRE professionals for a day of networking and insight.
Tammy Kelly, CCIM, CPM of Redwood Capital Group opened up the conference, followed by Tom Boyle, SIOR of Lee & Associates and the 2020 president of SIOR Chicago. The first panel, Chicago: Big Shoulders. Big Deals. Big Plans, featured Kathryn Kovitz Arnold of Taft, Stettinius Hollister, LLP (moderator), Brian Atkinson of Hines, Jack George of Akerman, Lori Healey of Clayco—Chicago and Jim McDonald of Ryan Companies.
The Experts’ View discussion saw a lively fireside chat—moderated by Meredith O’Connor of JLL—between Andy Gloor of Sterling Bay and Drew Nieman of Riverside Investment & Development. This was followed by the annual State of the Market panel, moderated by Danny Nikitas of Avison Young and featuring Nooshin Felsenthal of Tishman Speyer, Josh Graham, CPA of WIPFLI, Geoff Kasselman of CRG, Jim Pape of TCF Bank and Paul Reaumond of CBRE.
The final panel of the main session was Chicago: My Kind of Town or Second City, moderated by LaTonya Ellis of Ice Miller LLP. Joining her on stage were Shawn Clark of CRG, Dean Giannakopoulos of Marcus & Millichap Capital Corporation, Brian McKiernan of CenterPoint Properties, James Postweiler of Newmark Knight Frank, Art Rendak of INLAND Mortgage Capital.
The event also featured a series of asset-class-specific breakout sessions. Elizabeth Gracie of O’Keefe Lyons & Hynes, Chris Baker of Zeller Realty Corporation, Jillian Brown of Convene, Scott Delano of Wright Heerema Architects and David Stein of Steinco handled the office discussion. Covering the world of industrial were Diane Thalmann of NIPSCO, Tom Boyle, SIOR of Lee & Associates, Joshua Hearne, SIOR of Cawley Chicago, John Joyce of SVN | Chicago Commercial, Steven Kohn of Avison Young and Mike Larsen of InSite Real Estate.
Bart Johnson of Wintrust Commercial Real Estate, Mac Dobson of Mag Mile Capital, Matt Hendy of Regency Centers, Doug Lyons of Pearlmark, John Murphy of PNC Bank, Steven Weinstock of Marcus & Millichap and Jay Young of King Operating Corporation discussed investment. The hot topic of multifamily was handled by Ralph DePasquale of Berkadia, David Bradley of Marcus & Millichap, Kevin Farrell of Fifield Companies, John Jaeger of CBRE and Andy Schank of Infinity Communities.
The property management session featured Nasutsa Mabwa of ServiceMaster Restore, Elena Jimenez, of The Missner Group, Derrick Johnson of Zeller Realty Group, Don Stewart of The Inland Real Estate Group and Ken Verne of Bridge Development Partners. Finally, the retail panel included Keith Lord of Lord Companies, Kevin Hynes of, O’Keefe Lyons & Hynes, Amy Levin of Next Realty, Charley Margosian of, Highland Management, Joseph Parrott of CBRE and Sarah Wicker of CallisonRTKL.
