Sean Ryan is associate editor of Real Estate New Jersey

"RealShare Industrial East is bringing together a diverse, high-level group of speakers and attendees for what promises to be an informative and fun event," says Richard Kelley, director of the RealShare Conference Series, parent company of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. "From our roundtables tomorrow afternoon to our 'Night at the Races' tomorrow night, attendee response has been overwhelmingly positive, and the sessions and speakers taking part in them on Thursday speak for themselves. This is going to be a great event."

A series of more than a dozen Peer Group Roundtables will kick off the conference on Wednesday afternoon. Topics for the different tables include transportation matters such as ports and air freight, construction and brownfield management, and financial issues such as lease negotiations and the debt and equity market. Regional tables will cover the Northern New Jersey, Southern New Jersey, mid-Atlantic and Chicagoland markets.

Real Estate Media president and CEO Jonathan A. Schein will start off the full day of talks on Thursday with his opening remarks. Following Schein will be the Town Hall Meeting--a Tale of Two Markets, which will try to make sense of the contrasting signals that come with rising sales and cap rates next to high vacancy rates and flat rents. CB Richard Ellis executive managing director James L. Dieter will moderate a panel consisting of Opus East president and CEO Jim Lee, Cushman & Wakefield senior managing director Peter Quinn, Ashley Captial principal and CEO Paul Rubacha, Hartz Mountain Industries president and COO Emanuel Stern, and CalEast Industrial Investors CIO Dann Thomasson.