AZRE Forum 2016

Last night, AZ Big Media hosted the AZRE Forum, where a packed crowd of commercial real estate pros listened in on a mid-year market update from some of the Valley’s premiere experts.

About 300 people were in attendance and they heard a breakdown on the state of the commercial real estate industry in Arizona and how the brokerage markets are doing in Arizona.

Some of the evening’s highlights include:

• The panelists are optimistic about multifamily and infill developments in Arizona. Rents have been growing and there is a lot of optimism for 2017.
• In recent years, healthcare has been seeing many changes and that includes the type of space providers need. The panelists have been seeing a rise in needs for build-to-suit spaces as vacancy in older medical spaces has been rising.
• Construction costs have been high and a lack of skilled labor in Arizona is cause for a lot of concern in the industry.
• The panelists also talked about the possibility of a recession in the next couple of years, but since Arizona never experienced any kind of hockey stick growth, they hope the next recession will be a manageable one, closer to the 2001 recession than the Great Recession.

Meet the panelists

Tonight, we have thirteen panelists with two moderators from various sectors in the industry.

• Chapin Bell, P.B. Bell
• Steve Betts, Betts Real Estate Advisors
• Pete Bolton, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
• Molly Carson, Ryan Companies US, Inc.
• Kip Edwards, Banner Health
• Patrick Feeney, CBRE
• Mike Garlick, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
• Brent Herrington, DMB Associates, Inc.
• Sintra Hoffman, WESTMARC
• Julie Johnson, Avison Young – Arizona, LTD
• Jay Kramer, Fennemore Craig, P.C.
• Joshua Simon, Simon CRE
• Christopher Toci, Cushman & Wakefield
• Greg Vogel, Land Advisors Organization
• Ed Zito, Alliance Bank of Arizona