Last week, some of Uptown's biggest commercial real estate names gathered in Highland Park (ironically) to talk about the status of Uptown and what we should expect in the near future. And for a NAIOP breakfast titled "The Upside to Uptown," there sure was a lot of talk of Uptown's less trendy neighbor, Victory Park.

The panelists agreed that overall, Uptown looks fantastic. Gables Urban's Katy Slade said its residential properties are at 96% occupancy. MetLife's James Ray said he's looking for new debt in the neighborhood. Crescent's John Zogg confirmed what we've already been saying about McKinney & Olive's success (especially following last week's announcement that it had scored Cushman & Wakefield as its newest tenant).

But because of the finite geography of Uptown, these experts, especially Red Development's Paul Rowsey, predict that Victory Park is the next little city within the Big D to get its 15 minutes (or years) of fame. The surge of transplants from out of town still find the above-average multifamily rents more palatable than other big cities in the US. But for residents suffering from sticker shock at Uptown apartment prices, new developments in Victory Park might have the right price.

Paul noted the multiple multifamily developments coming to the neighborhood, reconfiguration of one-way streets becoming two-way (cue the collective high-fives from all Dallas drivers), mixed-use retail and walkability of nearby Uptown as major determining factors in Victory Park's near future.

At the NAIOP breakfast, we snapped Paul Rowsey, Marijke Lantz, Phil Puckett, James Ray, John Zogg, Katy Slade and Scott Krikorian.