The gaping hole at the former Filene’s site in Boston’s Downtown Crossing "will get underway" this year, a top commercial real estate executive predicted.

Ronald Perry, president of Colliers International Boston’s downtown brokerage group, spoke about the abandoned development at Colliers’ annual meeting last night.

"We think that there’s enough momentum in the market and interest in that site that something will happen this year," said Thomas Hynes Jr., CEO of Colliers International Boston. "There’s very strong demand in the rental market, and the precedent’s already set on that spine with residential towers right down the street. Whether it gets sold or whether Vornado stays in some capacity … something will happen in that location."

After three years of inactivity on the site, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) pulled developers’ permits in November. According to the BRA, the stop sign Boston Global Investors’ John Hynes and Vornado Realty Trust’s Steven Roth have placed in front of the One Franklin project have cost the city more than $20 million in new tax revenue, approximately 672 construction jobs and more than 2,700 permanent jobs.

The meeting’s keynote speaker Douglas Linde, president of Boston Properties, also gave some insight to commercial real estate activity in Boston’s future.

He confirmed there "are buildings in the Financial District that we like and that we’d like to own," but he would not specify which properties when asked by a reporter afterward.

Other predictions Perry made include positive office absorption for the next four years, possibly resulting in 1 million square feet of vacancy absorbed downtown. That comment came even though Perry mentioned that 3 million square feet worth of leases will expire by 2015.

In Cambridge, Boston Scientific is negotiating to lease 75 Ames St. to the Broad Institute and Novartis is planning a 500,000-square-foot expansion, said Joseph Flaherty, executive vice president and managing partner for Colliers.