Bob Gorson is the City Manager of Taft. He is a regular contributor to PublicCEO.com.

A self-sustained economic recovery is underway in California and the nation as a whole, according to Comerica Bank’s Dana Johnson and Stanford University’s Lawrence Goulder at the annual Comerica Bank Economic Forecast Conference in Santa Clara. 

The recovery will create net job growth in 2010, the economists say, as well as increases in incomes and consumer spending.

The above theme was echoed by nearly all of fifteen of the West Coast’s top real estate business professionals at the recent ICSC 2010 Southern California Idea Exchange in Long Beach.  Patrick Donahue, President and CEO of Donahue Schriber, stated that “high end retailers are booming and the retail outlet business is on fire”.  David White, Managing Director of Prudential Real Estate Investors, stated that “capital is available for quality projects”.  Not all remarks were as promising but the general theme was that retail is past the bottom and starting to improve.

Other sources predict that retail rental rates in California have stabilized (after falling 20 to 35%) and should start to increase slowly.  Occupancy rates at quality retail projects average 94% and improving and overall retail sales should increase 2 to 3% in 2010.

We see that our local economy is starting to improve and are expediting our planning efforts to ensure that we are poised for the economic recovery! 

Bob Gorson is the City Manager of Taft. He is a regular contributor to PublicCEO.com.