Given the event's Garden State venue, moderator James L. Dieter, executive managing director of CB Richard Ellis in Chicago, started things off right here by asking the panelists, "why New Jersey for industrial real estate? It has high land costs, tough environmental issues…."

Terming the market "one of the greatest industrial markets in the country," Emanuel Stern, president/COO of the locally based Hartz Mountain Industries, gave credit to "the nexus of population and infrastructure." Virtually all of his company's holdings are in Northern New Jersey, and most of that is industrial product.

On the institutional side, Dann Thomasson, CIO of CalEast Industrial Investors, told the more than 300 attendees that, "all of our clients have a strong desire to have some exposure in New Jersey." Paul Rubacha, president/CEO of Ashley Capital, took the opposite view, indicating that in the long-term investment picture, "there's too much competition from the big gorillas already in the market."