The Phoenix Business Journal surveyed a number of commercial real estate professionals about the lessons learned from the boom and bust of real estate: As you look back on the boom-and-bust cycles affecting the commercial real estate market in the past decade, what lessons have you learned and how will that affect decisions and plans for the future?

Craig Henig

Senior managing director and Arizona market leader, CB Richard Ellis. This downturn has had a much greater reach than those we’ve experienced before. This time, not only was commercial real estate impacted, but residential real estate, automakers, financial institutions, insurance companies and a host of other industry sectors found they were no longer bulletproof. What this has taught us is that we need to be more strategic in our business plans, how we grow our industry and operate our companies. We do not want to be caught unprepared or without a contingency plan again. In the next downturn, we hopefully will have implemented better safeguards that will give us a much softer landing.

James Pederson

Chairman, Pederson Group Inc. My company experienced its first big growth spurt during the latter stages of the recession of the late 1980s and early ’90s. The lesson I learned is that all economic cycles provide opportunity, and I don’t expect our current downturn to be any different. The recent devaluation of many commercial properties around town is certainly painful, but it does present unparalleled opportunity for entrepreneurial and creative development firms. We are looking forward to those opportunities and hope to capitalize on them.