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Shopping Centers Today -> January 2003
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LEADING EDGE MEETING TARGETS INDUSTRY’S FUTURE
By Debra Hazel
Senior-level industry executives and other innovators from around the globe will gather this month to explore the marriage of creativity and commerce at ICSC’s first Leading Edge Conference, to be held January 27-29 at the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort, Avon, Colo.
The meeting’s goal is to give retail real estate professionals an opportunity to discuss the current state of the industry and explore its future in an intimate setting, said ICSC President and CEO Michael P. Kercheval. The conference will take the form of a series of symposia on retail, architecture, design and real estate fundamentals, among other subjects.
“This is not about ‘How do I lease out a center?’” Kercheval said. “It’s ‘What are the fundamentals? What’s driving our industry in the future?’ ”
Many forces are shaping the shopping center industry, he noted. “There is television, radio, mass media, publications — all are influencing our industry.”
As a result, the meeting will feature panelists from both inside and outside the industry. Economist Tony Downs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, will speak. So will Richard Saul Wurman, president of Newport, R.I.-based Wurman Inc. and creator of the TED (technology, entertainment, design) conferences on unlocking creativity.
A real estate panel will examine world security and how it affects the industry, in a discussion led by Linda Wertheimer, senior national correspondent of National Public Radio. A separate panel will feature Michael Buckley, director of Columbia University’s real estate development program, discussing what he calls the “seven transition waves” that will shape the political and economic future of the United States.
So with all these forces in play, what will shopping centers be like 10 years from now? A discussion led by Sam Marasco of San Diego, Calif.-based LandGrant Development, will try to figure that out.
Main Street retail development is to be the focus of “Street Smarts,” an exchange of views led by Lee Wagman, president of Hollywood, Calif.-based Trizec R&E. Other participants will include Jim Bennett, president of Washington, D.C.-based Madison Marquette; Dan McCaffery, president of Chicago development firm McCaffery Interests; and Robert Tindall, president of Callison Architecture, Seattle.
Other panels will zoom in on cultural diversity and the world’s view of the United States and retail.
Kercheval said he hopes the conference will become an annual event for an industry constantly looking to renew itself. For more information, visit www.icsc.org.
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