NoVa's Unique Strengths Take Center Stage

TYSONS CORNER, VA-For the third year in a row, Real Estate Media will be holding its Northern Virginia RealShare conference. Scheduled for Dec. 4th at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner, the half-day event is expected to attract between 250 to 275 attendees, according to Richard Kelley, executive director of the RealShare Conference Series.

The RealShare Washington conference has been a fixture in the DC real estate community for several years. Real Estate Media decided to launch a separate conference for Northern Virginia because of the market’s unique strengths that delineate it from the District and Maryland. “Northern Virginia is a big and vibrant market all on its own,” Kelley tells GlobeSt.com. “Fairly or unfairly it is traditionally lumped in with the DC market. But people still want to hear about the real estate trends specific to what is happening in Northern Virginia.”

The event will be launched by a discussion of the state of Northern Virginia’s market in 2008, to be moderated by Spencer Stouffer, managing director at Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers. Panelists will include Jim Lee, president & COO of Opus East; Mark Levy, VP and market officer for ProLogis; Jeff Neal, principal of Monument Realty; and Herb Mansinne, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle.

Other discussions include a fact or fiction give and take about the region, paneled by Bill Collins, a managing director at Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers and Doug Fleit, CEO of America’s Capital Partners.

Cliff Mendelson, senior managing director of Transwestern will be moderating a discussion on the trends in the debt and equity markets, with panelists including Michael Brodsky, CEO of the Goldstar Group. Brian Casey, director of MetLife’s regional office, Renee Mankoff, senior finance executive at Imperial Capital Bank and Carl Olzawski, SVP of Grandbridge Real Estate Capital.

Other sessions will include the an outlook on leasing, rents and absorption in the office market, the investment sales market and trends in multifamily markets.