As published in The San Diego Daily Transcript, December 9, 2008

During his 40 years in commercial real estate, Alan Scott has ridden his share of market ups and downs.

From his post-San Diego State University rookie broker days in the recessionary 1970s through his current leadership of Coldwell Banker Commercial Almar Real Estate Group in the rollercoaster 2000s, Scott has weathered the market corrections of four decades with pragmatic realism and cautious optimism.

On a recent morning sitting in the conference room at his La Jolla office, the amiable Scott seems almost Zen about the future of his company, as well as many aspects of the real estate market.

Like most real estate pros and market analysts, he's trying to figure out the best business strategies for 2009 as the global financial meltdown turns conventional planning wisdom on its head.

"Obviously I'm concerned about where the market is today, and certainly planning and managing for the worst-case scenario for the very unpredictable road ahead," said Scott, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of locally based CBC Almar. The company does real estate leasing and sales throughout all of San Diego and Riverside counties.

But on the flip side, he said San Diego continues to be a favorite destination -- in the United States and the world -- for placing capital, and for those clients and investors with cash or good credit, "there are plenty of deals to be made."

Unlike the early '90s that had an oversupply of commercial product compounded by the savings and loan crisis, this time around Scott isn't seeing so much an inventory surplus as a freeze-up of liquidity that's impacting most markets.

Particularly hard hit is southwest Riverside, where sales and leasing activity is flat and property values have plummeted, while bright spots are commercial office leasing in coastal North County and sales of multifamily (apartment buildings) throughout the region.

"We saw the beginning of a market correction in early 2007 and started adjusting staffing and resources accordingly," said the recession-wise Scott, whose prior experiences include serving as senior vice president for Grubb & Ellis and a 20-year tenure with Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services in San Diego.

And while there's been some belt-tightening and reprioritizing of services at his small company that boasts 60 employees including 35 sales professionals in three offices, Scott said he's glad to be overseeing a more nimble, flat-line organization and not managing one of the giant brokerage firms that are feeling enormous industry pain.

For a privately held, debt-free "boutique" firm like CBC Almar that isn't beholden to shareholders or drive by stock values, there can be some upsides to the market downturn.

"Despite all the gloomy national and international headlines, there's always a story within a story. Here in San Diego County, we're still seeing qualified buyers and investors who are looking to do deals," said Scott, noting the anecdotal evidence that his Carlsbad office is posting third-quarter transaction numbers that are ahead of last year's.

Like politics, the erudite executive said real estate is all about local issues and assisting clients in dealing with the realities within their submarkets.

"What I've really focused on in recent months is getting us back to the problem-solving basics and sharpening our resources to deal with the current challenges and opportunities," he said, touting the growing demand for his firm's problem resolution services and work-out strategies.

In these tough times, he says his firm's ability to roll up its sleeves and solve problems -- operational, physical or financial -- is critical to clients' short-term survival and long-term success.

Utilizing a team approach, CBC Almar draws on the experience of its brokers and support staff to deliver a fast response and operate with high degree of flexibility to adapt to the myriad challenges facing its clients, which include some national institutional investors but mostly locally based small syndications, partnerships and individuals.

"Next year, especially early on with the new administration, will probably be an unknown area. We'll need to counsel our clients to make good decisions -- even if those aren't easy ones -- to put them in the best position to work through these uncertain times," Scott said.

Boots to the ground is how he describes his troop's efforts to "get close, communicate and do whatever needs to be done to service clients."

This entrepreneurial vision and forward-thinking leadership has been key in CBC Almar's meteoric rise to one of Coldwell Banker Commercial's top national affiliates for the last six consecutive years.

Established in May 1999 by Scott and co-founder R. Marty Smith, CBC Almar has completed more than $3 billion in sales and leases, representing millions of square feet of properties in the San Diego, North County and Temecula regions.

Though not directly involved in many of the day-to-day lease and sales transactions, Scott occasionally still leads his sophisticated, transactional expertise to the firm's complex and high-profile investment assignments, such as the 2007 sale of the 75-acre Queen's Seaport Development area in Long Beach, which included the fabled 72-year-old Queen Mary ocean liner for $43 million.

"You don't get a lot of chances to sell a Queen Mary," said Scott, who increasingly is focused less on making that next dollar or closing that big deal, and more on positioning the company to come out of this market correction strong and ready for the next generation to step up and take it to the next level.

"We've got the respected institutional name and global brand of Coldwell Banker, but we're still a locally owned and controlled company that is all about our people and clients," he said.

For a company that didn't exist a decade ago, Scott is proud of his team's many accomplishments and its growing industry reputation for being "perhaps not the biggest but certainly one of the very best."

And that position might vastly improve if, as he predicts, property sales pick up in late 2009 because the market has been stalled for more than a year and pent-up demand to buy commercial property is growing.

"If lenders reopen their money spigots, sales by owners who are in financial distress might be brisk," he added.