LAS VEGAS-The International Council of Shopping Centers’ annual RECon convention kicked off here Sunday with its first sessions, and cocktail parties, at and around the Las Vegas Convention Center. More than 30,000 retail real estate executives are expected to attend the event that lasts until Wednesday, a better showing than last year but still lower than the roughly 50,000 in attendance during 2007.

Retailers have been talking for the past few months about a quicker-than-expected resurgence in the retail market, and possible new store openings, but most said that this conference, as is typical, will be the bellwhether of the health of the current market. The questions this year seem to be, will landlords agree that 2012 is time to start building again, and will retailers followwith new stores?

Edward Hogan and Sara Queen, both with New York City-based Brookfield Office Properties, told an audience during a presentation about CBD leasing opportunities Sunday that big box retailers are now in full acceptance of entering downtown markets. Companies such as Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy are launching smaller, targeted urban stores, surpassing the challenges that come along with clearing through high levels of city red tape and infill issues, they said.

Hogan, the company’s national director of retail leasing, said that Target, like most retailers, had been concerned about entering the downtown Los Angeles market. Many retailers had tried and failed in that downtown, and many retailers wouldn’t even entertain the idea, he said. “The downtown has a history of failure, and retailers do not like to be pioneers,” Hogan said.

At first, the company wanted to create a suburban-type store in the downtown, with ample parking and loading, but the company realized the best way to go by creating a new urban experience, Hogan said. The new store will open in 2012 with a 20-year lease at Brookfield’s Seventh and Fig shopping center as the first of five of Target’s new smaller urban stores, he said.

“The future for urban retail is strong,” Hogan said. “Retailers need to grow, and many CBDs want to improve their streets. However, the public-private partnership needs to be there, and a project can be pushed through if housing and parks become a priority.”

One attendee said he doesn’t agree that urban stores are going to gain as much traction as Brookfield believes. Pat Duffy, president of the Houston region for Colliers International, said the 2010 Census showed that downtowns for the most part have lost residents in the past 10 years. “Retailers are going to go where the people are, and that’s still the suburbs,” says Duffy, who was attending his firm’s National Retail Meeting at the Renaissance Hotel next to the convention center on Sunday night.

He tells GlobeSt.com that most retailers haven’t grown in the past couple of years because they’ve been cleaning up balance sheets and incorporating efficiencies. “But I think this next year is the year they’ll do something. They have to add stores eventually, it’s the only way to grow stock value,” Duffy says.

Mark Keschl, national director of the Colliers’ retail services group, said he expects a lot of attendees will be measuring up the competition this year. Keschl tells GlobeSt.com that the RECon conference and predictions of a favorable holiday season will encourage executives to push for new store growth by 2012. While discount retailers and luxury brands have enjoyed success during the downturn years, mid- and large-box chains have been waiting on the sidelines.

“They’re looking to gauge the possibility of new development at RECon,” Keschl says. “There’s really nothing left for them to get into, the empty boxes from companies such as Circuit City are mostly used up. If they get a good feeling from the conference, and they believe that the 2011 holiday season will be good, they’ll take that back to their boards and we’ll likely see some announcements by the end of the year about 40 to 50 new store openings.”

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