NEW YORK CITY—Every point in the economic cycle creates its ownset of benefits and challenges. In the current local market, therise of technology companies and other creative class firms isunofficially setting forth a new mandate on office space while thecomplex issue of creating and maintaining affordable housing istaking many twists and turns. Those were among the observations ofcommercial real estate professionals during a panel discussion inMidtown on Thursday.

“There isn't a lot of modern office space in the city so a lotof the growing sectors of the economy are being forced intobuildings that weren't meant as commercial office space,” said SethPinsky, EVP of RXR and the former president of the city's EconomicDevelopment Corp., under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“As these industries expand, there's an opportunity to buildinto their increasing demand, especially outside of Manhattan—likein Brooklyn—where the workforce lives,” he continued. “We've beenlooking for opportunities to build small scale commercialproperties and we'd be willing to do small speculativedevelopment.”