Moderated by John Derham, a senior managing director at Cushman & Wakefield who is branch manager of the Mid-Atlantic Region, will moderate "A Look Ahead at University City." Speakers will discuss the $1 billion on development being spent there and how it will impact the city's economic future.

About 350 people are expected to attend the conference, which will host a total of 30 speakers, says Jason Young, producer of the event for the RealShare Conference Series. Besides University City, panelists will touch on "economic forecasts, predictions on leasing, investment and development, how financing is impacting Center City and opportunities in distressed assets," he says.

During lunch at 12:30, William Hankowsky, president, chief executive officer and chairman of Malvern, PA-based Liberty Property Trust, which owns 78 million square feet of office and industrial, will discuss his views of the market.

Economist Peter Linneman and Hessam Nadji, director of research services at Marcus & Millichap, will give attendees their views of the state of the economy, both locally and nationally. A town hall meeting, titled "Opportunities in 2010," moderated by Rich Gottlieb, senior vice president of operations at Keystone Property Trust, is stacked with local industry leaders that will focus, among other things, the investment and development opportunities in the market across all sectors.

The conference is part of a year-long series of events produced by ALM's Real Estate Media Group, which is the publisher of Real Estate Forum, GlobeSt.com, and the Distressed Assets Investor newsletter.