(Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

NEW YORK CITY-Only days after the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, real estate professionals pondered the future of Downtown Manhattan at Real Estate Media's Fifth Annual RealShare New York conference, at the Roosevelt Hotel. Most speakers at the event agreed that things Downtown are changing for the better.

"There is no doubt that our city has made a remarkable rebound since the terrorists ripped the heart out of Lower Manhattan," said Michael Desiato, group publisher and editorial director of Real Estate Media, which publishes GlobeSt.com and Real Estate Forum. He points out that the biggest problem executives are currently having is finding more deals to get done.

Downtown Manhattan may not yet have the draw of Midtown, but it is drawing some of that areas tenants because Downtown is becoming more of a 24-hour environment where people are living, said Michael Geoghegan, vice chairman of CB Richard Ellis, speaking during the conference's Town Hall meeting. "It's not a landlord's market," he said. "But it certainly is a quickly recovering market."