Creative office focuses on using space more efficiently, a trend also found in multifamily where units are getting smaller and outdoors space is more common, like the Megatoys two-building multifamily development currently under construction in the arts district. “It is almost communal living,” Matkins tells GlobeSt.com. However, currently 500,000 people work downtown while only 50,000 people live downtown. “That is a staggering statistic,” says Horne. While new multifamily developments will help bring people downtown, the roundtable also discussed the need for a school system so that young couples who move downtown will stay downtown once they start a family.

Matkins also noted that a major benefit of living downtown was the walkability and proximity to public transportation. “People want to get out of the markets where you have to use a car,” he says. “Everybody wants to live downtown. Downtown is hip; it is cheaper to live downtown; everything about downtown was better for young people.”

New foreign capital coming into the downtown market is another a strong indicator of downtown's growth, according to Horne. “The global capital market community looks at Los Angeles as a global city. That is a great value,” he says, adding that major Chinese investors are looking at large sites downtown.

The event was such a success that CBRE and Allen Matkins plan to host another roundtable in March, and are hoping to put similar roundtables together two to three times per year. “Lew and I joked that if we would have done this 10 years ago, three guys would have showed up because no one cared about downtown,” says Matkins. “Not only did they come together with some passion and a lot of interest, they really had a very healthy dialogue about where Los Angeles has come from and what the future holds.”