(Crystal Proenza is associate editor of Real Estate Florida.)

MIAMI-The commercial real estate industry may be holding its breath until 2010, according to forecasts given at this year's Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Panelists at this year's planned sessions remained upbeat while reporting overall rising vacancies and dipping rents across the board to packed, standing-room-only audiences.

"Our view is that we are most likely going to have a deep economic recession akin to the early '90s," said Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics at the Haas School of Business in Berkeley, CA. Rosen was part of a panel forecasting the national office, retail, industrial and apartment markets. The recession began in the early part of this year and remained moderate until September, when the situation became more severe, he explained.

"This is a tremendous abyss we're looking into," Jon Southard, principal with CB Richard Ellis' Torto Wheaton Research in Boston, bluntly stated. Sam Chandan, chief economist at New York City-based Reis, prefaced the panel's forecasts by saying that where the market will go over the course of the next year depends on behaviors and sentiment, two elements that are difficult to gauge.