LOS ANGELES-Commercial real estate industry leaders amassed at Allen Matkins' 2013 View From the Top conference on September 9 to discuss the current real estate market and offer forecasts for 2014. Gathering top real estate professionals together creates a pivotal discussion and open exchange of ideas. “They are all sharing their own insights with each other about what is going on, and it actually gives a lot of value to the real estate industry,” said David Osais, Allen Matkins managing partner.

Overall, experts agreed that value-add transactions and new development were key themes in the current market. “You can see now, because of where we are in the development cycle, the amount of capital that has really gone to some of the tertiary, the secondary markets, and that trend has expanded,” said John Tipton, attorney Allen Matkins.

Several new developments underway along the west coast were discussed, most notably the Transbay Tower project from Boston Properties and Hines, which Allen Matkins' attorney Tony Natsis said will be “most iconic development in the history of the western region” when construction is complete. Other notable development news came from John B. Kilroy, Jr., president and CEO of the Kilroy Realty Company, which currently has $2.5 billion in development projects, including a the Columbia Square mixed-use property in Hollywood, the Linkedin headquarters and a 30-story building for Salesforce in San Francisco.

“There has clearly been an evolution over the past three of four years,” said Kilroy. “We went from core investing to value add, and last year I laid out at this conference a blueprint for what we were going to be doing development-wise. Now we have been able to implement that in a pretty big way.”

The event began with speaker Michael Van Konynenburg, president of Eastdil Secured LLC, offering an economic overview with a focus on state treasuries and interest rates. “We are in a great position still on interest rates,” said Van Konynenburg. “We got used to having 2% treasuries or less. Now we have close to 3%, but on a historical basis, it is still extremely attractive.” He also offered a positive forecast for 2014 with continued job growth and increased demand. He had a similar outlook for the Los Angeles market, which is currently five to six markets behind the other major national markets. “Los Angeles is on track to be one of the top five markets this year,” he said.

CBRE EVP Valerie K. Achtemeir also offered insight of a strengthening Los Angeles market, noting that due to several major transactions, investors are looking to L.A. for additional yield. However, San Francisco remains the strongest force in the office sector. Achtemeir additionally drew attention to Los Angeles' strong industrial market, which is seldom discussed. “There are some real changes in the industrial market in terms of shopping and retailing, where the Amazon's of the world are making larger warehouses more viable throughout the country, but specifically Southern California, she said. “We have seen very aggressive cap rates and really strong investor demand on the industrial side here in Southern California.”

The event's speakers were top industry professionals from major companies, including Owen Thomas, CEO of Boston Properties, Alexander Vouvalides, VP of acquisitions for Hudson Pacific Properties and Paul Paradis, SVP at Hines. For additional commentary from the speakers and a video overview of the event, take a look at Allen Matkins' View From the Top 2013 video series.