Experts address future of commercial real estate
(The following editorial was adapted from the opening remarks of Business Journal Editor Brad Bollinger at last Tuesday’s Commercial Real Estate networking event.)
Good evening and welcome to our 2010 Commercial Real Estate networking event under the theme, “Where’s the Money?”
Going back in our records, I found the Business Journal has been holding a version of this event since 1990, only skipping a year here or there. We think, and we hope you agree, it’s important to get together once a year if for no other reason than to stop and reacquaint ourselves with many of the people like you who help make the North Bay such a great place.
Looking back on the last year in the economy, I was reminded of the story of a man that leaves this earth and when he gets to heaven, he is directed to purgatory to repent for his sins. He is given three choices, a place of awful fire, a place of grinding sand storms and, third, a place where people were standing in water up to their knees drinking coffee. The man chose the obvious, the third option. He was there for a while enjoying his coffee when a voice could be heard, ‘OK. Coffee break is over. Back on your heads.’
Still, being a glass-half-full kind of person, I am optimistic. Indeed, events seem to have conspired to create what could be the ideal climate for the North Bay to move ahead in a very positive way.
After all, we have a strong, educated work force; homes are more affordable today than at any time in the last decade; we have strong universities and community colleges; we have cutting edge companies; and we have the office and industrial facilities large enough to house the next Medtronic.
Importantly, though they are still in the development stages from Sonoma State University, chambers and other business organizations across the North Bay, we are going to see for the first time in my memory sophisticated and sustainable efforts to support business and economic vitality in our region.
And so, help is on the way and the Business Journal will be there to do its part. It is our mission to provide information that helps businesses navigate whatever is before them, and we are committed to continuing that role.
We have for you tonight a panel of banking and commercial real estate industry leaders to address the future. And who better to moderate this panel than Joan Woodard, president and CEO of Simons & Woodard, a firm that has played an enormous role in the architecture, commercial real estate and economic development of this region.
She will be joined by Brian Reed, executive vice president and chief credit officer for First Community Bank; Sherrill Stockton, senior vice president and SBA manager for Exchange Bank, and Kurt Scheidt, principal with Kearny Capital Partners of San Francisco.
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