RealShare EXCLUSIVE: Conference Attracting Major Players

In what is expected to be a spirited Town Hall Meeting, John Goodkind, executive managing director of Newmark, will be the moderator of a panel discussion that will broach the current state of the Westchester County real estate market and where it might be headed in the future. The panelists include Bruce Berg, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Cappelli Enterprises; Raymond J. Crotty, president and chief operating officer of Union State Bank; Michael Grossman, executive vice president of Mack-Cali Realty Corp., Joseph Simone, president of Simone Development Cos.; and Barrie Wood, managing director of CIBC World Markets.

Next, some of the biggest players in the investment sales sector will offer their views on the county's red-hot property sales market. Moderating the program will be Andrew Merin, executive vice president of Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets. The panel will feature Felix Charney, president of Summit Development Corp., the new owner of the Reader's Digest property in Chappaqua; Michael Connolly, regional director of GE Commercial Finance Real Estate; Jeff Dunne, vice chairman of CB Richard Ellis Tri-State Investment Team; and Anthony E. Malkin, president of W&M Properties.

Michael Desiato, editor-in-chief of Real Estate Media will sit down for a one-on-one session of "Inside the Real Estate Mind" with Robert Weisz, president and chief executive officer of the RPW Group. Weisz's firm has converted the former Altria Group property in Rye Brook into a multi-tenant building that has been the focal point of most of Westchester's leasing activity of late.

Finishing off the conference will be a focus on the county's major cities and the massive amount of development taking place there. White Plains Mayor Joseph Delfino, Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone and New Rochelle Mayor Timothy Idoni will discuss their respective downtown redevelopment programs and what new projects are in the pipeline.