The latest ULI Real Estate Economic Forecastis predicting more positive momentum ahead for both the economy and the commercial real estate industry through 2019. That being said, the pace of growth is slowing and the survey of 48 economists and analysts clearly reveals some lowering of expectations.

A year after the opening of the Panama Canal expansion, rents for industrial space around the Port of Los Angeles are at an all-time high and vacancy rates are hovering around 1 percent.

For more than 20 million passengers annually, Tegel Airport is the gateway to Berlin. As a new international airport is being built, an ambitious project is intended to transform Tegel into an “urban tech republic.”

This year, global investors should be keeping an eye on politics in China, Japan’s outbound investment, and the logistics sector, said a panel of senior industry figures speaking at the recent ULI Asia Pacific Summit 2017.

There was a time before Prohibition when St. Louis had more than 40 breweries. By the 1980s, however, that number had dwindled to just two. Today, experts speaking at a ULI panel said St. Louis’s smaller brewery scene is again thriving, with 50 separate breweries operating locally.

Commercialized marijuana is big business and is expanding as a new asset class at an astronomical rate, according to a ULI Spring Meeting panel of industry investors, operators, and legal experts on the state of the cannabis business and real estate opportunities being created in the sector. Twenty-eight states have legalized the sale of medical marijuana, and eight states plus the District of Columbia allow recreational marijuana to some degree.

Breweries have an almost magical ability to revitalize neighborhoods and even entire towns, according to panelists speaking at ULI’s 2017 Carolinas Meeting.

Last month, Cushman & Wakefield reported that U.S. industrial markets absorbed 63.6 million square feet (5.9 million sq m) of space in the final quarter of 2016, which propelled net absorption for the year to a record-setting 282.9 million square feet (26.3 million sq m). According to the company, the U.S. industrial vacancy rate for all product types continued to decline in the fourth quarter, falling 30 basis points (bps) from the prior quarter and 100 bps from the prior year to 5.5 percent.

A ULI Advisory Services panel will visit the city of Georgetown and Georgetown County to advise representatives on how best to transform a 150-acre (61 ha) site into a catalyst for economic development.

FutureBuild 2016, hosted in January by ULI Los Angeles in partnership with VerdeXchange, offered a look at urban growth challenges in Los Angeles that are illustrative of issues faced by cities everywhere as they aspire to become more livable, prosperous, and sustainable.