At the ICSC Western Division Conference last week, we caught two local pros--Tara O'Connor (far left), office and marketing manager for Lee & Associates North San Diego County office, and Dave Howard (second from right), the office's president--taking a break from the action along with The Hoyt Organization's Leeza Hoyt and Lee & Associates West LA president Duncan Lemmon. Dave tells us that retail in San Diego County continues on the upswing--existing inventory is being leased or sold at a much quicker pace compared to the past few years, and new construction is being considered. His office recently repped two separate landlords in 10-year leases with Party City and a 7-Eleven store location.

Leeza fielded a question about B2B social media on a Special Industry Group panel on social networking. Other media mavens on the panel included NewMark Merrill's Heather Danko, Vestar California's Kim Daskas, and Regency Centers' Emily Ford, along with their moderator, Velocity Retail Group's Dave Cheatham. (We tweeted in our question before remembering we were in the same room as everyone and instead just used our Mouth 2.0.) They also discussed how Yelp could be a detriment due to bad reviews, to the point where at least one city is thinking of taking a closer look at the site because of the impact on small businesses.