Attendance and number of exhibitors was down from prior years. Several people attributed this to this year's meeting being about 10 days later than in the past so people had already made vacation plans. Several people were either on vacation or on business trips that occur the same week of July annually so they weren't able to attend.
That said, of the attendees themselves, the energy level was high. Activity around the developer's exhibits seemed very brisk. The was also more "walk up" business than in the past, particularly from investors.
Overall, people seemed confident of the economies growing strength were eager to partcipate.
Even though some of the biggest net lease news out there right now is the Family Dollar deal, there wasn't much talk of it as dollar stores aren't as prevalent in New England as they are in other parts of the country.
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Jonathan Hipp
Jonathan Hipp began his career in real estate over 25 years ago. In his early years as a broker, he ventured into the net lease industry and quickly began leading the US net lease market, closing over $3 billion in transactions. In 2005, Jon founded Calkain Companies, a company focused solely on net lease investment services. As President and CEO, he has been instrumental in building the firm into one of the leading Net Lease real estate companies, transacting over $12 billion of net lease deal volume over the past 13 years. He has expanded Calkain’s services to include brokerage, advisory, asset management, capital markets, and industry research. He has become a well-known resource, panelist, and speaker at various Net Lease and Industry conferences and is a regular contributor to GlobeSt.com on real estate trends. In June 2015, Jon’s passion for the real estate business was again recognized as he was nominated for the Top Real Estate Player in the DC area by SmartCEO magazine.
