LONG BEACH, CA-The Long Beach and Los Angeles ports have grown to rank among the busiest in the world, turning logistics and warehouse space into some of the most sought-after property types in Southern California. From in-fill projects near the ports to huge warehouse developments in the Inland Empire, investors and developers are doing their best to meet the demand for these facilities while at the same time serving the fast-growing market for industrial condominiums.

With the L.A. County Economic Development Corp. forecasting that two-way trade in the Long Beach and Los Angeles region will grow 12% in 2007 and 13% in 2008, the RealShare Industrial West conference on Nov. 28 and 29 at the Hyatt Regency in Long Beach has targeted logistics and foreign trade among its hot topics for the event. The opening speaker for the conference on Nov. 29 will be Curtis Spencer, president of IMS Worldwide, an international consulting firm specializing in foreign trade zones, economic development and industrial park development.

Spencer's address will mark the first session of a full day of panels and presentations that will include a panel on the increasingly important role that the Inland Empire plays in the region. The Inland Empire session follows a highly successful RealShare Inland Empire conference held earlier this year, notes Jason Young, content and communications coordinator for the RealShare conference series.

Young calls the Inland Empire "one of the geographic hot spots" that the Industrial West conference will focus on, along with hot topics like foreign trade, logistics, the demand for distribution space and a host of other related topics. The conference is produced by Real Estate Media, publishers of GlobeSt.com, Real Estate Forum and Real Estate Southern California. Nearly 300 industrial specialists are expected to attend.

The Nov. 29 schedule also will include panel sessions that will include a town hall meeting on the outlook for all facets of the industrial market, a panel on the role that ports play in logistics and the global supply chain, a discussion of the investment sales market, a panel on public-private partnerships and a panel on how to capitalize on multi-tenant and industrial condo trends.

In addition to the full slate of sessions on Nov. 29, the two-day event will offer attendees a chance to get a jump on their networking the previous evening at a 5:30 p.m. speed networking session followed by a power cocktail reception at 6:45 p.m. "The speed networking and the power cocktail reception are both open to anyone who registers for the conference," Young points out. "They're a great way to quickly meet more potential new business contacts than you would in the usual networking environment."

Another new touch this year is a "developer power panel," Young notes. It will be the closing panel and will feature some of the most active developers in the region. "We will have a range of developers who are doing projects of all sizes who will talk about what they are doing and why," Young says.