Charles DiRocco, managing director of industry trends andanalysis with ULI, apologized for the bad news he was detailing aspart of the group's recent Emerging Trends in Real Estate report.Of the 600 commercial real estate professionals surveyed for theannual report, most put Detroit as 45th out of the 45 nationalmarkets. "There's just not really anyone that sees any growthopportunity in Detroit right now," DiRocco said.

However, one of the key speakers of the day is spearheading alarge development project in Troy, the Pavilions of Troy. HunterRichardson with the Richardson Development Group is working withthe city to bring in a $300-million redevelopment project on thesite of the 900,000-sf former Kmart headquarters. The project isanticipated to have up to 600,000 sf of retail, 300,000 sf ofoffice, a 250-room hotel and 750 multifamily units. In a privateinterview at the forum, Richardson tells GlobeSt.com that he'sstill bullish about the development and the City of Troy, thoughhe's still not sure how the housing part will pan out. "With condosnot doing as well, it may be that we just make more of the unitsapartments," he says. He hopes to have the project completed by2010.

The theme of the forum is Connecting the Dots: Linking Suburban& Urban Town Centers Via Transit, an idea that theautomobile-heavy Motor City has been averse to accomplish fordecades. The problem with transit in the community is also one of amassive urban sprawl pattern, said Myron Orfield, a professor withthe University of Minnesota and the Brookings Institution. "Jobcenters are less clustered here than in most parts of the country,"he said, referring to how jobs and communities are too widelyspread across Southeast Michigan, instead of having a few core jobcenters. "Two-thirds of Detroit jobs are not in a clusteredarea."