Panelists provide happy ending to West Side Story.

The speakers at Professional Women in Construction's January Developers Forum, West Side Story, held at the General Society Library in New York City and moderated by New York Post columnist Lois Weiss, were in agreement: the demand for real estate development throughout the City is great and will only continue to rise in the foreseeable future.

"Within the next ten years, there will be an additional one million people in New York City," said Joseph Moinian, president and CEO of The Moinian Group, quoting from a recent NYC study commissioned by Mayor Bloomberg. "Where will they work?"

Clearly, the panelists at the PWC event will head the list of developers who find creative and bold ways to provide the City with the space it needs, sometimes in unexpected places.

Philip Pitruzzello, vice president Manhattanville development for Columbia University, discussed plans to develop a 17- acre parcel of land within a 35-acre space in an industrial area known as Manhattanville in West Harlem. The project will generate over $10 billion in economic activity throughout the State, and will include university housing, a new School of Business, research and other academic buildings, plus 122,000 sf of open space accessible to the public.

Pitruzzello pointed out that Columbia, which awarded $112 million or 36% of its major contracts to MWL (minority-, women- and locally-owned) firms from 2002 to 2005, will launch an aggressive outreach program seeking W/MBEs (women and minority business enterprises) and local workers.

Gerald Brauser, chairman of The Brauser Group, best known as a NYC parking garage owner/operator and a developer of shopping centers in the tri-state area, is now converting some of his properties to mixed use developments.

Brauser's director of development Scott L. Aaron discussed a project at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street consisting of 41 luxury residential units with retail at the base that is set to go on the market. There is already a growing waiting list.

A second Brauser project is a hotel and residential property in a 50 to 60 story tower, occupying over 500,000 s/f at Washington and Carlyle Street two blocks south of the World Trade Center site.

Louis Dubin, president and CEO of Athena Group, a developer with 14 projects currently in progress nationwide, said that "There is life in the real estate market in New York." Athena is currently working at 100th Street and Central Park North at Lenox, and on a warehouse conversion at 43 West 64th Street.

Dubin noted construction trends including newfound collaborations between architects and designers where one firm supervises the interior, another the exterior. With costs "killing projects," he said, companies are developing alternative techniques to maintain or curtail expenses.

Janno Lieber, World Trade Center project director for Silverstein Properties, noted that activity has picked up downtown and agreements have been reached with government agencies as to which properties Silverstein will build. The opening of the City's first green office tower, 7 World Trade Center in May, has already won Silverstein Properties awards and "conveyed to the world what caliber the city is capable of."

With the Freedom Tower under construction and Goldman Sachs set for completion in 2009, the area will, said Lieber, "re-emerge as the financial capital of the world."

Joseph Moinian has been converting antiquated office space into residential buildings for over 25 years. Concentrating on the West Side, he is behind the development of over four million sf in the Hudson Yards, spearheading the current 1.5 million sf project along the 42nd Street corridor, Atelier and Phase II, a mixed use development that will combine retail, rental and luxury condominiums across from the expanded Jacob Javits Center.

Noting that rents for office space have doubled from the beginning of 2006 and that the need to seek new frontiers for essential residential and office space is growing, Moinian said, "I feel very bullish about Manhattan. Midtown is moving West, Chelsea is moving north. Downtown is very strong as is the West Side."

Event sponsors were: Bovis Lend Lease; LANGAN; MSD Visuals; Parsons Brinkerhoff & Carter-Burgess; Rosenwasser/Grossman, PC; Skanska USA Building, Inc.; Turner Construction Company; Winick Realty Group; and Ysrael A. Seinuk, PC.

For information about PWC monthly events, call 212.486-7745 or email [e-mail]. Visit www.pwcusa.org.