Industrial real estate investors, developers and brokers are in a buoyant mood these days, a fact reflected by a record crowd of some 300 industry pros who attended the recent two-day NAIOP I.con conference in Long Beach, Calif.
This year’s conference attracted some of industrial real estate’s heaviest hitters, including Jack Fraker, vice chairman and managing director of investment properties at CB Richard Ellis, Jim Dieter, executive vice president /industrial operations/brokerage at Cushman & Wakefield and Craig Meyer, managing director and head of industrial and logistics services at Jones Lang LaSalle.
The event kicked off with a bang, addressing what has become the most popular topic expected to impact the industrial market in the years ahead: the widening of the Panama Canal, which is scheduled for completion on the canal’s 100th anniversary in 2014.